How Israel is waging war on bearing witness in Lebanon
After a day of documenting destroyed families and their homes, Al Mayadeen TV reporter Fatima Ftouni was traveling with colleagues on the Kfarhouna–Jezzine road in southern Lebanon when an Israeli drone began its attack on Saturday.
The first missile struck near the clearly marked press vehicle. Fatima managed to run away, but then th second strike hit - followed by a third and a fourth. The Israeli attack killed Ftouni, her brother, and fellow journalist Ali Shuaib, along with two other civilians who tried to help.
When another colleague, Jamal al-Gharabi, later reached the site of the strike, there was almost nothing left to recover from the vehicle, beyond the smouldering remains of a press vest, a Palestinian keffiyeh she carried with her and the last trace of a journalist whose only weapon was the act of witnessing.
Ftouni was one of those brave journalists who had already suffered so much, but kept going because she was powered by her dedication to the truth. Just weeks ago, her uncle and his family were killed in an Israeli strike, which she reported on live television for Al Mayadeen.
When the three Lebanese journalists were hit on Saturday, they were in a clearly marked press vehicle. In seconds, the home of truth became a site of terror.
The Israeli military openly acknowledged the strike, alleging that Shuaib was embedded within a Hezbollah intelligence unit and had been tracking troop movements. As in countless previous cases, these accusations were made without publicly available or independently verifiable evidence - transforming victim into accused.
Killing journalists, then criminalising their work, is a recurring Israeli strategy, part of the “Gaza-ification” of Lebanon.
Strategy of gaslighting
Israel, the region’s primary rogue state, seeks to quash investigations by global media - and its strategy has been largely successful. Many outlets are now obsessing over the geopolitical impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran, while mostly ignoring the humanitarian impacts of Israel’s murderous assaults across the region.
Without journalists pushing to find the truth, the prospects of individual and state accountability are forgotten or ignored. This is part of a fine-tuned Israeli strategy of gaslighting, which relieves soldiers of responsibility for even the most obviously brutal crimes, such as the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners at facilities such as Sde Teiman.
Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard has argued that Sde Teiman is a “moral black hole” that has “exposed once and for all the great Israeli lie about the existence of a professional, independent investigative and prosecutorial system seeking substantively to hold rogue soldiers to account”.
Each case follows a familiar sequence: deadly strikes, followed almost immediately by a justifying narrative of demonisation
In Lebanon, this logic has been visible in the repeated killings of journalists, from Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah, to Al Mayadeen’s Farah Omar and Rabih al-Maamari, who were killed while working in the country’s south. In October 2024, another Israeli strike hit a clearly marked media compound in Hasbaya, killing three journalists and wounding several others.
Each case follows a familiar sequence: deadly strikes, followed almost immediately by a justifying narrative of demonisation.
Even rescue operations are not spared. The logic of the “double-tap” strike - hitting once, then striking again as medics and journalists rush in - has become one of the most terrifying signatures of contemporary warfare. It is a tactic designed not only to kill, but to deter the act of bearing witness itself.
Israel’s war in Gaza has been recorded as the most dangerous conflict for journalists in history. More journalists have been killed in Gaza than in the two world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the Afghanistan War combined.
Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported a record 129 media workers killed - the highest number since it began collecting data more than three decades ago - with Israel responsible for two-thirds of those deaths.
Snuffing out the truth
In Gaza, Lebanon and other theatres of Israeli military operations, journalists have documented the moments leading up to their own deaths. As in the case of Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, they have also been subjected to public accusations and online campaigns alleging affiliation with Hamas or other armed groups, with zero evidence provided.
In January, reporter Abdul Raouf Samir Shaat was killed alongside two colleagues, Mohammed Qashta and Anas Ghanim, just days after his wedding while documenting Israel's war crimes and suffering of civilians in al-Zahra area of central Gaza - my hometown - which no longer exists. Israel later claimed they were operating a drone.
In both Gaza and Lebanon, the pattern is consistent - Israel criminalises the victims in order to avoid any accountability. But the burden on the modern world is huge.
In an era where the erosion of public trust is compounded by AI slop, large-scale disinformation campaigns, and a deeply undermined system of international law, we need human-powered investigations, verification and fact-checking more than ever before.
Marie Colvin, who died while covering the war in the Syrian city of Homs, once stated: “We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.”
When the killing of journalists becomes a matter of state policy, it poses an incredible societal risk. As historian Timothy Snyder points out, “if there are no facts, we can’t resist - it becomes impossible”.
Killing journalists is a crime against humanity, but it is also a crime against truth, integrity and accountability. Every media worker who dies is a beacon of truth snuffed out by those who would prefer a dark curtain to fall across the world.
At this desperate point in history, we must continue to light candles of resistance.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
Read Full Article on Middle East Eye →