[News] Lebanese journalists defy Israeli threats to expose the truth

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Lebanese journalists defy Israeli threats to expose the truth

Despite constant death threats and targeted airstrikes, Lebanese
journalists Ali Mortada and Amal Khalil continue reporting from the
frontlines, determined to share the reality of the battlefield, expose Tel
Aviv’s crimes, and challenge the narratives set by the occupation

William Van Wagenen <https://thecradle.co/authors/william-van-wagenen>

OCT 31, 2024 -
https://thecradle.co/articles/lebanese-journalists-defy-israeli-threats-to-expose-the-truth
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)

If the Israeli army wants to stop my work and my voice with missiles, they
will. But I will not stop my work because for me this war is a just cause.

— Lebanese journalist Ali Mortada speaking to *The Cradle* on 24 September



While reporting from south Lebanon for the past year, Mortada has received
many threats, including directly from the Israeli army’s Arabic language
spokesperson, Avichay Adraee.

“He put a tweet on his X account saying I’m not a journalist. I am a spy
working for Hezbollah on the border,” says Mortada, the *Al Mayadeen* field
correspondent in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah fighters are fiercely
resisting Israel’s ongoing ground invasion and mass bombing campaign.

The Israelis started to make online polls, asking people whether they
should kill me today, or tomorrow. It was hard because we know they are not
joking. There is a big probability they will do something.

*Hello my enemies*

The charismatic *Al Mayadeen* correspondent has become better known to
western audiences recently due to his trademark greeting and informal,
satirical social media videos directly addressing Israelis, including
<https://x.com/AsH_N_ASE/status/1847664171334455674> the army spokesman
Adraee.

“Hello, my enemies, may you have a very, very bad day,” he says at the
beginning of each video, at times filmed while lighting
<https://x.com/aliimortada/status/1847529353376047146> a cigar or walking
on the beaches <https://x.com/aliimortada/status/1844341306933621169> of
the war-torn southern Lebanese city of Tyre (Sur).

Just one day after speaking to *The Cradle*, the occupation army murdered
<https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-kills-three-lebanese-journalists-in-intentional-targeted-assassination>
three journalists, including two of Mortada’s colleagues at *Al Mayadeen*,
with an airstrike as they slept at a media guesthouse in southeast Lebanon.

“The 3 am airstrike turned the site – a series of chalets nestled among
trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war – into
rubble. Cars marked ‘PRESS’ were overturned and covered in dust and debris,
and at least one satellite dish for live broadcasting was totally
destroyed,” the AP reported
<https://apnews.com/article/journalists-killed-lebanon-israel-c89cf1109daaf3e6e7b766584710234d>
.

The strikes killed camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician
Mohammed Rida of Al Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who
worked for Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar TV.

Mohammad Farhat, a reporter from Al Jadeed TV, says everyone awoke in a
panic and rushed outside in their sleeping clothes. “The first question we
asked each other: ‘Are you alive?’”

“The journalists thought they were safe because this south Lebanon area
wasn’t in Israel’s evacuation zone,” PBS journalist Leila Molana-Allen wrote
<https://twitter.com/Leila_MA/status/1849749519631540488> on the social
media site X.

Molana-Allen, who is also currently reporting from Lebanon, said the
journalists had given details of their movements to UN peacekeepers to send
to the Israeli military.

“Turns out the IDF [Israeli military] used that info to bomb them while
they were all inside asleep,” Molana-Allen reported.

Lebanon’s Minister of Information, Ziad Makary, called
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/25/how-impunity-fuels-israels-attacks-on-journalists-in-gaza-and-lebanon>
the Israeli attack “an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with
premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the
location representing seven media institutions.”

*Bombing **Al Mayadeen** HQ*

Just one day before Mortada’s conversation with *The Cradle*, the Israeli
air force bombed the *Al Mayadeen* headquarters in the Bir Hassan area of
Beirut.

“Thank God no employees were there. We knew it was a high probability they
would hit our offices, so we had a security strategy and thank God we
didn’t have any casualties in that attack,” Mortada says.

Almost exactly one month before the journalists’ guesthouse was bombed,
Israel killed another *Al Mayadeen* journalist, Hadi al-Sayyed. He died
<https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1428337/al-mayadeen-journalist-killed-in-israeli-airstrike-in-southern-lebanon.html>
from his injuries on 24 September, one day after an Israeli airstrike on
his house in Srifa in the Tyre district.

Sayyed’s home was hit as part of a massive terror bombing campaign launched
by Israel on 23 September.

Israeli warplanes dropped bombs, killing
<https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-lebanon-hezbollah-e3ca9c83642056f962fdf76319e3b8de>
492 people, including 35 children and 58 women while wounding 1,645 others
in just one day.

According to the AP, it was a “staggering one-day toll for a country still
reeling” from Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie terror attacks targeting
Hezbollah members, primarily from its civilian wing, the week before.

*Journalists under Israeli fire*

Lebanese journalists had already been working for almost a year under the
shadow of Israel’s killings of *Reuters* video journalist Issam Abdullah on
13 October 2023 and *Al Mayadeen* journalist Farah Omar, her cameraman
Rabih al-Maamari, and their assistant Hussein Akil on 21 November 2023.

All four were killed reporting from the Lebanon–Israel border area after
the war between Hezbollah and Israel began on 8 October, the next day after
the launch of the Palestinian resistance Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and
Israel’s ensuing war on Gaza.

A *Reuters* investigation concluded
<https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-LEBANON/JOURNALIST/akveabxrzvr/>
that Abdullah was killed and six others injured when Israeli troops fired
two tank shells directly at a group of journalists from *Reuters*, AFP, and *Al
Jazeera* who were filming at an open spot one kilometer from the border.

*Al Mayadeen’s* Omar, Maamari, and Akil were killed by an Israeli airstrike
while reporting from Tayr Harfa, an area about 1.6 kilometers from the
Israeli border.

“It was a direct attack, it was not by chance,” the outlet’s director
Ghassan bin Jiddo said
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/21/israeli-strike-kills-three-journalists-near-lebanon-border>,
noting that the Israeli government had blocked the channel from
broadcasting in Israel one week before.

An Israeli warplane fired two rockets on the journalists’ location just
after they ended a live broadcast giving updates on the latest Israeli
bombardment in south Lebanon.

“I cried with overwhelming sadness at the enemy’s treachery because Farah,
Rabih, and Hussein were in an open area that I had reported from in the
previous month and a half,” Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil informs *The
Cradle*.

“Their car was clearly marked showing they were from the press and there
were no fighters or military men with them,” explains Khalil, who has
worked at Lebanese newspaper, *Al-Akhbar*, as their south Lebanon field
correspondent for the past 18 years.

*Killing to control the narrative*

A week before her three colleagues were killed, Khalil herself survived an
Israeli attack. She was in a compound for journalists in the village of
Yaroun when it was targeted by two rockets from an Israeli drone. One of
her colleagues was injured when they were showered with dust and pieces of
rock from the explosion, as Khalil reveals:

Whether we were targeted or saw our colleagues Farah or Issam killed, we
did not stop our work or take any time off. We consider it a tribute to
Farah and Issam and Rabih and a spite to Israel that we continue our work.
Israel’s goal is to kill journalists and force them to leave the south.
They want to empty it of journalists so there are no pictures so they can
control and manipulate the narrative just as they did after Operation
Al-Aqsa Flood in Gaza.

“Of course, Israel kills journalists in Lebanon because they want to hide
their crimes against women and children and civilians and their destruction
of homes and burning of farmers’ fields. They don’t want their crimes
confirmed in words and pictures. They want the world to believe they are
targeting military sites, rather than civilians,” Khalil adds.

Like Mortada, Khalil has received direct, personal threats from Israel to
intimidate her into stopping her reporting.

On 25 August of this year, she received a message sent to her phone from an
Israeli number saying:

We know where you are, where you and your family live. If you want your
head to remain attached to your body, you must leave Lebanon.

Khalil asserts to *The Cradle* that:

Israel threatened me because my work is a challenge to them and is proof of
the crimes they have committed since the first day of the attack that began
on 8 October on the south. For the past year, I was present in the field. I
kept publishing stories of resilience and challenges to the Israeli enemy
from the border villages and front lines. I published pictures from my own
camera of how the Israelis were destroying and burning houses and killing
children and women.

*The making of a war journalist*

Khalil displays remarkable courage in reporting from the warzone despite
never wanting to be a war journalist.

When the 2006 June War erupted between Hezbollah and Israel, she was living
a comfortable life in cosmopolitan Beirut, writing for *Al-Akhbar* about
women and social issues.

On the first day of the war, I decided at that moment to return to my
village in south Lebanon. Shortly after, Israel began bombing all of the
bridges and highways to cut the connections in the region. But I had
decided to stay in the south no matter what, both to be with my family and
to do humanitarian and human rights work with the displaced. I did these
things in addition to my work as a journalist.

When the ceasefire was announced 33 days later, the *Al-Akhbar* editor made
her the paper’s south Lebanon field correspondent.

“So it was the June war in 2006 that determined my fate that I would become
a war journalist. I did not make the decision to become the field
correspondent in south Lebanon. I only made the decision to become a
journalist and a writer in Beirut,” she tells *The Cradle.*

She has remained in that post ever since, allowing her to gain an intimate
understanding of the geography, history, and people of the area. Her
relationships across south Lebanon help her navigate the danger, document
the aftermath of Israeli bombing, and find leads for the most compelling
stories.

*Unwavering commitment to reporting*

*Al-Mayadeen’s* Ali Mortada also has years of experience reporting from
warzones.

When asked by *The Cradle* what motivates him to keep reporting even after
so many colleagues have been killed, Mortada says, “First of all, it’s my
job; I did that in Syria, I did that in Iraq, I did that in Beqaa when the
fighting was against terrorists [ISIS, the Nusra Front]. And I did it now
in this mission against Israel.”

While Israel has invaded Lebanon many times directly before now, including
in 1978, 1982, and 2006, it also attacked Lebanon and Hezbollah indirectly
using proxies, including militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda.

As part of the covert US-led war on Syria starting in 2011, Israel
supported so-called “rebels” seeking to overthrow the Syrian government,
including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Al-Qaeda offshoots, the Nusra
Front and ISIS.

Nusra and ISIS sought to infiltrate and invade
<https://www.inss.org.il/he/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/systemfiles/Lebanon%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20the%20Islamic%20State%20%20Benedetta%20Berti.pdf>
Lebanon through areas in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley but were defeated
by Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army.

Mortada adds that the second reason he continues reporting from south
Lebanon now is because:

It’s my country, it’s my people, those are the houses of my relatives. I’ve
lived here all my life. I am Lebanese, so I have a duty to report until the
last breath that I take. Especially because we have a big problem of how to
put the story out to the world. We have so few journalists and channels
that report the reality as it is and don’t spread Israeli propaganda. So,
it is a national duty. It comes with the job.

*Losing the propaganda war and on the battlefield*

According to Mortada’s assessment of the ongoing war between Hezbollah and
Israel in the south, he tells *The Cradle* that Tel Aviv has not been able
to achieve either of the goals Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
declared:

Netanyahu made it a goal to take the towns south of the Litani River, and
he wants to return the settlers to Israel’s north. But the fact is that he
has been fighting for 30 days and he is stuck in the first line of defense
that Hezbollah made in the south.

Mortada says the Israeli military has no good options and is being dragged
into the “quicksand of Lebanon” as their losses in dead and injured
soldiers and destroyed tanks mount.

Israel has failed to return the settlers, while Hezbollah’s rocket,
missile, and drone attacks on Israeli military bases and infrastructure
have forced even more to evacuate, including from as far south as Haifa.

“On top of that, Lebanon has hit the bedroom of Netanyahu,” Mortada says,
referring to the bold Hezbollah drone attack that successfully hit the
Prime Minister’s residence in Caesarea.

Even Netanyahu cannot sleep in his own bedroom now after the military
operation in Lebanon.

“So this gives us an idea that Hezbollah took a blow to the head,” when its
leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders were assassinated, “but it
is still standing and is hitting back and its situation is very, very good
on the battlefield,” he concludes.

Regarding the ongoing war, Khalil was also optimistic, despite the many
painful losses Lebanon is now enduring.

She recalls what she witnessed first-hand in 2006, when “Hezbollah fighters
were victorious against the invading and occupying forces. They are sons of
the land who know its terrain and know how to fight and execute operations.”

Hezbollah is the resistance in southern Lebanon. It has once again
succeeded in defeating Israel on the ground. Israel is superior to us in
the air; they are always bombing us with artillery and airstrikes. But in
direct confrontations the soldiers of the Israeli enemy are weaker when
confronting the men of the resistance and the people of the region.
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