A man on a motorcycle looks at a building that was destroyed during an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern village of Zeita a day earlier, on October 14, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Credit: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP)
BEIRUT — Hezbollah strongly condemned what it describes as dangerous behavior by several Western media outlets, following a promotional tour organized by the Israeli army for journalists.
In a statement released on Monday, the group had initially reacted to a BBC report by Jerusalem correspondent Lucy Williamson, who crossed into southern Lebanon as part of the convoy arranged for journalists by the Israeli military.
"Following our previous statement regarding the promotional tour organized by the Zionist occupation army for several Western media outlets, it has become clear that, in addition to the BBC, networks and institutions such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, Fox News, Reuters, The New York Times, The Financial Times, the Associated Press and other networks and channels also participated in this tour," Hezbollah said.
“Ten days on, the army was taking us to a village a couple of miles into Lebanese territory, where it had just established ‘some level of control,’” Williamson wrote for the BBC on its website.
Williamson explained that “Israeli artillery was blasting through the air as we arrived … Two tanks sat in churned up earth near what was once a village square. The level of destruction around them is reminiscent of Gaza.”
“The BBC, with all its platforms and in different languages, did not just blindly side with the murderers and criminals and justify the Zionist barbarism against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, but brazenly sent a team that entered a southern village accompanied by the occupation army and violated the sanctity of Lebanese territory, sovereignty, and applicable Lebanese laws, as shown by the reports published by this institution,” Hezbollah said in a statement Monday.
“The [Israeli army] recently began bringing journalists on brief visits to villages and Hezbollah outposts near the fence where it has operated. These sites were meant to serve as springboards from which the organization's elite Radwan Force could launch a surprise attack into Israel,” Haaretz reported Monday.
Hezbollah’s Media Relations condemned “this unjustified and absolutely unacceptable move and demands the Ministry of Information, the National Media Council, and the relevant judicial and security agencies take the necessary legal measures against the BBC and its teams in Lebanon and protest to the BBC Company and the legal bodies representing it. It also demands that the unions of journalists, editors, and free media outlets in the world condemn this step,” Hezbollah concluded.
At the time of the publication of this article, the BBC had not yet responded to L’Orient Today’s requests for a reaction to Hezbollah's statement.
The Media Secretariat of the Lebanese Popular Conference called on the Ministry of Information and the National Media Council "to halt the operations of the BBC team in Lebanon due to its cooperation with the Zionist enemy forces and its violation of Lebanese laws and national sovereignty," the state-run National Agency reported Monday.
In a statement, it said, "The BBC's decision to send a journalistic team to enter one of the southern Lebanese villages accompanied by the Zionist occupation army is a blatant and utterly unacceptable violation of Lebanese land, sovereignty, and applicable laws."
Strongly condemning this "shameful act," it called on the Minister of Information, the President of the National Media Council and the relevant judicial and security authorities to "take the necessary legal measures against this station and its teams in Lebanon, ban it from conducting media work in the country, and send a strongly worded protest to the BBC's administration to prevent the recurrence of such an abhorrent action."
Six employees of BBC Arabic in Beirut announced their resignation today, Monday, in protest against a report published by BBC English about the fighting in southern Lebanon after the team visited Lebanese areas accompanied by the Israeli army.
The seven employees are Sana Khoury, Mohamed Hamdar, Marie-Josée Qazzi and Joey Sleem, along with three others from the BBC Extra team. They stated that "they will not return to work unless the institution issues an apology for the report or holds accountable the team that accompanied the Israeli army."
Around 1.5 million people have been displaced in Lebanon since fighting broke out between Hezbollah and Israel and further escalated on Sept. 23. Over the past year, at least 2,141 people have been killed in Lebanon, with nearly 10,099 others injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.