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Israel Bombs Al-Mayadeen News, Murders Journalists, Falsely Accuses Others of Terrorism
In recent days, this aggression has directly targeted media outlets critical of their invasions of both Gaza and Lebanon.
Israel’s regional war has been the deadliest for journalists in recorded history, as reporters have been direct targets of their aggression and even falsely labeled as combatants.
In recent days, this aggression has directly targeted media outlets critical of their invasions of both Gaza and Lebanon.
On Wednesday the Israeli regime bombed an office used by Al-Mayadeen News in the Jnah neighborhood of the Lebanese Capital, Beirut.
Although the media network evacuated this office in advance, the strike resulted in one death and the injuring of five others, including a child, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
In November 2023, Israeli airstrikes targeted and killed two Al-Mayadeen journalists, correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Me’mari, as they reported on developments in southern Lebanon.
The news outlet was started in 2012, primarily with the help of former Al-Jazeera Arabic journalists who were dissatisfied with the media outlet’s coverage of the Syrian War.
Since then, the platform has been repeatedly targeted due to its consistently favorable coverage towards the Palestinian cause, more specifically the regional Axis of Resistance that opposes US and Israeli imperialism.
Like Al-Jazeera, Al-Mayadeen has been banned from reporting by Israel and accused of being affiliated with “terrorism”. However, Al-Mayadeen’s ban has been in place longer than that of Al-Jazeera, beginning in November of last year.
On the same day that Al-Mayadeen’s office was bombed in Beirut, six Gaza-based Al-Jazeera journalists were accused by Israel of being affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), putting a target on their heads.
The two most prominent journalists accused of being “terrorists” by Israel were Anas Al-Sharif and Hussam Shabat, both based in northern Gaza. The Israelis offered no proof for their outlandish claims.
While current members of the Israeli government shared the claims against the Al-Jazeera journalists, so too did members of the Israeli opposition.
Notably, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet accused the six journalists of being “terrorists”, the same man who had used a random video to claim that PIJ fighters had killed veteran Al-Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, back in 2022.
An Israeli soldier had killed Shireen Abu Akleh in the Jenin Refugee Camp with a precise headshot, which was clear from the beginning, yet the Bennet held to the claim that it was actually Palestinians who had shot her.
The video he was referring to was debunked by Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem later that day. Despite this, as Prime Minister, Naftali Bennet never apologized for lying publicly and refused to prosecute Shireen Abu Akleh’s killer.
On Thursday morning, Israel also bombed a press station in the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaiyya, murdering two Al-Mayadeen journalists; cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Rida; in addition to killing Al-Manar’s camera operator Wissam Qassim.
Western corporate media, even including The Guardian newspaper, described the attack as killing journalists from “Hezbollah-affiliated TV stations”.
This was despite the fact that journalists from Sky News, TRT, Al-Jazeera, Al-Jadeed, Al-Qahera and other outlets, were all based in the same facility at which vehicles with the word “PRESS” written on them were parked out the front.
During the past year, Israel has murdered at least 177 journalists in Gaza, 11 in Lebanon, and one in Syria. This is unprecedented in the documented history of war.
In recent days, this aggression has directly targeted media outlets critical of their invasions of both Gaza and Lebanon.
On Wednesday the Israeli regime bombed an office used by Al-Mayadeen News in the Jnah neighborhood of the Lebanese Capital, Beirut.
Although the media network evacuated this office in advance, the strike resulted in one death and the injuring of five others, including a child, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
In November 2023, Israeli airstrikes targeted and killed two Al-Mayadeen journalists, correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Me’mari, as they reported on developments in southern Lebanon.
The news outlet was started in 2012, primarily with the help of former Al-Jazeera Arabic journalists who were dissatisfied with the media outlet’s coverage of the Syrian War.
Since then, the platform has been repeatedly targeted due to its consistently favorable coverage towards the Palestinian cause, more specifically the regional Axis of Resistance that opposes US and Israeli imperialism.
Like Al-Jazeera, Al-Mayadeen has been banned from reporting by Israel and accused of being affiliated with “terrorism”. However, Al-Mayadeen’s ban has been in place longer than that of Al-Jazeera, beginning in November of last year.
On the same day that Al-Mayadeen’s office was bombed in Beirut, six Gaza-based Al-Jazeera journalists were accused by Israel of being affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), putting a target on their heads.
The two most prominent journalists accused of being “terrorists” by Israel were Anas Al-Sharif and Hussam Shabat, both based in northern Gaza. The Israelis offered no proof for their outlandish claims.
While current members of the Israeli government shared the claims against the Al-Jazeera journalists, so too did members of the Israeli opposition.
Notably, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet accused the six journalists of being “terrorists”, the same man who had used a random video to claim that PIJ fighters had killed veteran Al-Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, back in 2022.
An Israeli soldier had killed Shireen Abu Akleh in the Jenin Refugee Camp with a precise headshot, which was clear from the beginning, yet the Bennet held to the claim that it was actually Palestinians who had shot her.
The video he was referring to was debunked by Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem later that day. Despite this, as Prime Minister, Naftali Bennet never apologized for lying publicly and refused to prosecute Shireen Abu Akleh’s killer.
On Thursday morning, Israel also bombed a press station in the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaiyya, murdering two Al-Mayadeen journalists; cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Rida; in addition to killing Al-Manar’s camera operator Wissam Qassim.
Western corporate media, even including The Guardian newspaper, described the attack as killing journalists from “Hezbollah-affiliated TV stations”.
This was despite the fact that journalists from Sky News, TRT, Al-Jazeera, Al-Jadeed, Al-Qahera and other outlets, were all based in the same facility at which vehicles with the word “PRESS” written on them were parked out the front.
During the past year, Israel has murdered at least 177 journalists in Gaza, 11 in Lebanon, and one in Syria. This is unprecedented in the documented history of war.
For more information:
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israel-...
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The journalists were targeted by an Israeli airstrike on the residence of the media compound in the southern Lebanese city of Hasbayya on Friday, October 25.
They join a large number of Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who were murdered at the hands of the Israeli army in the last year.
“The international community should shoulder its responsibility to provide protection for journalists who are routinely murdered by the Israeli army”, the Palestine Chronicle said in a statement.
“Labeling journalists as ‘terrorist’, then deliberately murdering them with impunity and with no accountability has been a regular event in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon,” it added.
This is completely unacceptable, and sets a dangerous precedent where journalists will become easy targets, not only in Palestine and Lebanon, but across the world, the statement added.
The Palestine Chronicle also extended its condolences to the brave journalists of Al-Mayadeen and all Lebanese and Palestinian media who are covering the atrocities of the Israeli wars and genocides.
“You have set new, high standards of courage, as you continue to restore to the media some of its status and respect, keeping in mind the ongoing moral blindness of western mainstream media,” the Palestine Chronicle editors said.
“You stand at the frontlines of bravery and honor, and we will continue to be guided by you, in this battle for truth, from Gaza to Lebanon, to the world over,” the statement concluded.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
The Israeli occupation forces conducted an airstrike Friday morning targeting the residence of press crews in Hasbayya, in the south of Lebanon, killing three journalists and injuring three others, the Lebanese Ministry of Health stated.
The three slain journalists were Ghassan Najjar, a cameraman with the Lebanese media network Al-Mayadeen; Mohammad Reda, a broadcast engineer with Al-MayadeenK and Wissam Qassem, a cameraman with the Lebanese media network Al-Manar.
The Lebanese Civil Defense confirmed the death of the three journalists early Friday in a strike on the residence of press crews in Hasbayya, The Lebanese National Network (NNA) reported.
Both Al-Mayadeen and Al-Manar slammed Israel’s aggression, labeling it as a war crime.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al-Mayadeen, Ghassan Ben Jeddou, held the occupation “fully responsible for this war crime in which it targeted the journalists’ crews, including Al Mayadeen’s.”
“The occupation’s targeting of the journalists’ residence was deliberate, and there are others wounded from other Arab channels as well,” he said.
According to Ben Jeddou, the Israeli occupation “finds pleasure in killing,” and among those it targets are journalists “who expose its criminality, so it hates them sadistically.”
The chairman of Al-Mayadeen vowed that the media network will keep reporting the truth despite all the risks.
“Al-Mayadeen will keep going and shall never retreat,” he said, noting that this was not a targeted assault against Al-Mayadeen solely but it is “an aggression against all press crews.”
Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent in the south of Lebanon, Fatima Ftouni, confirmed that the strike “targeted a residential area where journalists, cameramen, and technicians from various media outlets were stationed in the region for several weeks.”
𝐖𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
The Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack on journalists, saying it as a war crime “that passes without any deterrent or an international voice to stop what is happening.”
He added that Israel’s intentional targeting of journalists aims to intimidate the media to cover up for the crimes and destruction it commits.
For his part, the Lebanese Minister of Information, Ziad Makari, slammed Israel’s latest crime against journalists.
“What occurred is a war crime added to the criminal record of an enemy that disregards all laws and violates every taboo in full view of the entire world,” Makari said while extending his condolences to Al-Manar and Al-Mayadeen for the death of their journalists.
The Director-General of the Ministry of Information, Dr. Hassan Falha, also condemned “the deliberate killing of journalists and media personnel in Hasbayya by Israeli forces,” as reported by NNA.
Falha labeled the crime as a “clear war crime against international and humanitarian law.”
In a post on X, the director-general stressed that “such actions reveal the increasingly criminal nature of the occupation, which will not extinguish the flame of truth or silence the voice of a free press.”
𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧
Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, on October 7, 2023, the Lebanese movement Hezbollah has engaged directly, but relatively in a limited way in the war against the Israeli occupation.
Israel escalated its aggression with the cyber-terror attacks on September 17 and 18, which claimed the lives of at least 37 people including children, and injured around 3000 others.
This went hand in hand with a series of assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, the last of which was that of the Secretary-General of the resistance party Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.
These developments coincided with unprecedented bombings and airstrikes by Israel’s army on different cities across Lebanon particularly in the south, Bekaa and the southern district of Beirut.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced on October 24 that 2574 Lebanese were killed and 12001 were injured since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon.
The Lebanese Government Emergency Committee announced on October 24 that the number of shelters has reached 1,097 centers, 922 of which stand at maximum capacity.
The Head of the committee, Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin revealed that around “50 thousand families have been displaced to approved shelters, noting that the total number of displaced people exceeds 1.2 million.”
According to the committee, 344,819 Syrians and 150,104 Lebanese crossed into Syrian territory from September 23 to October 23.