Lebanese television stations in the cross hairs
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by MEB Journal Staff
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The Israeli military attacked several TV stations across Lebanon during its recent war on Hezbollah, killing two people involved in the local media industry
injuring at least seven, and causing millions of dollars in damages to transmission equipment.
The first casualty came on the second week of the war, on July 22, when Suleiman Chidiac, a technician for the Lebanese Broadcast Corporation (LBC) was killed after three missiles were launched at a transmission center in Fatqa, northwest of Beirut.
TV towers were also destroyed in the northern village of Turboul, targeting transmission facilities used by LBC, Future TV, Al Manar and state broadcaster Tele-Liban. Tele Liban towers were also struck in the north Lebanon area of Al Koura, injuring one station technician, while LBC suffered a third attack on its antennas located near Adma.
Hezbollah-supported Al Manar was one of the worst hit stations, receiving a total of seven separate Israeli air strikes that leveled its five story headquarters in the southern suburb of Beirut. Three employees were injured in that attack.
The only journalist killed in the conflict was Layal Najib, a freelance photographer for the Lebanese magazine Al Jaras and Agence France Presse. The 23-year-old was traveling to south Lebanon on July 23 to document a group of villagers fleeing the Israeli shelling. She died from a shrapnel wound after a missile struck the road near her taxi.
Israel’s persistent targeting of major roadways also resulted in severe injuries to three staff of Lebanese broadcaster New TV on July 12.
New TV staff member Bassel Aridi said missiles fell approximately 200 meters in front of the station’s car, just as it was traveling over a bridge south of the Litani River.
“I think we were targeted on purpose, our car was well marked as TV, and it was obvious that we were journalists,” Aridi told MEB journal.
Reporters and staff from Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and Al Manar narrowly escaped injury on July 22 when roads surrounding the convoy were targeted by Israeli missiles. Al Jazeera reporter Abbas Nasser described the attack as an obvious effort to stifle their reporting.
“Because the Israelis failed to find where the Resistance was sending missiles from, they wanted to target everything that moved,” Nasser said. “They also wanted to create obstacles for journalists to limit what can be shown of the massacres against civilians.”
Nasser added that Israeli air raids had confined journalists to the southern city of Tyre and thus prevented coverage of bombardments occurring further south.
“Because lines were cut we faced many difficulties in learning about massacres and casualties; another problem was lack of fuel due to the siege,” he said.
Al Jazeera had also been attacked by Israeli forces a week earlier on July 17 in Nablus when technician Wael Tanous was struck in the leg by rubber bullets while standing near the station’s uplink vehicle. The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported Tanous to be wearing a bullet proof vest clearly labeled TV at the time.
“Media outlets cannot be deliberately taken out unless they perform a military function,” said the CPJ’s Middle East program coordinator, Joel Campagna. “Israel needs to explain the reason behind these attacks.”
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