'In south Lebanon, we don't just cover the war, we try to survive reporting it'

'In south Lebanon, we don't just cover the war, we try to survive reporting it' Submitted by Ramez El Kadi on Mon, 04/06/2026 - 15:36 Israel has killed 14 Lebanese journalists in deliberate attacks, marking them as part of its target list Lebanese journalists Ramez El Kadi reports live from Ebl al-Saqi, a border village in south Lebanon, on 8 April 2026 (Supplied/MEE) Off Editor’s note: The following is a personal account by Lebanese journalist Ramez El Kadi, who has been reporting on Israel’s war from the front line in southern Lebanon since the Israeli military first launched its offensive in October 2023. Each time I take the road to southern Lebanon, the journey doesn't feel like a simple geographical move from one city to another. It is rather a psychological crossing between two versions of the profession: the one we knew when we first became journalists, and the one Israel's war imposed on us three years ago. The protective vest and helmet are no longer just tools of the trade; they have become part of our daily routine, like the notepad, the camera and the microphone. Every day, I try to convince myself that this is an ordinary day of reporting on the ground, another assignment we will complete and return from. But the truth is, reality has changed since our colleagues themselves started coming under fire. News coverage has ceased to be just the transmission of events. It has become a personal confrontation with a heavy fear that accompanies me and the team in the back seat of the car, in that long silence broken only by messages from friends and family: Why do you go back? Aren’t you afraid? Haven’t all these years of reporting been enough? In the past, danger was part of the geography of fire. I first encountered it in northern Lebanon, in Tripoli, during rounds of internal violence. Back then, the threat was clear – tied to the place where you stood, the street you approached, and the bullet whose origin you could identify. Today, it is entirely different. The journalist has become part of Israel's bank of targets. Becoming the story The repeated targeting of our colleagues has meant that the mere presence of a camera or the act of reporting a story that does not align with those wielding the weapon have become sufficient reason to place a journalist in the line of fire. This was laid bare on 19 March, when RT correspondent Steve Sweeney and his cameraman Ali Rida Sbaiti survived an Israeli attack near the Qasmiyeh Bridge in southern Lebanon. The two, clearly marked as press, were reporting on earlier strikes of the same bridge, a vital crossing in the region. Reporting from south Lebanon has become an existential decision we take every day. A plume of smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Sour, in southern Lebanon, on 24 March 2026 (AFP) This is the war's most profound transformation: danger is no longer defined by the road, the proximity of a broadcasting point to clashes in the border town of Khiam, or to the number of kilometres separating you from the front lines.  The very press gear we carry to convey the truth can, in an instant, become reason enough to target us. For war correspondents in Lebanon today, a psychological shift has reshaped how we ready ourselves to perform our duty, beyond safety measures and security assessments. To stand in front of the camera now is to carry a double awareness: of what is unfolding around you, and the possibility that you, too, may become the story. Why would we be targeted? The day we lost our colleague Issam Abdallah, a Reuters photojournalist, in a targeted Israeli strike in Alma al-Shaab, changed everything. Just hours before the attack, on 13 October 2023, we stood together with other journalists searching for a vantage point overlooking the Israeli bombardment in the border region. We then went our separate ways. It all felt entirely ordinary: we were journalists doing our job, not party to any conflict. The question that day was simple – and, in retrospect, painful: why would we be targeted? I was reporting live from the rooftop of a house when an Israeli tank across the border opened fire. “It seems the Israelis hit a house or maybe a car judging by the black, thick smoke,” I remember saying on air. Minutes later, I found myself reporting that the Israeli military had struck a group of my colleagues – journalists who were clearly and visibly identifiable. Al Mayadeen journalist Jamal al-Gharabi holds a press vest next to a car destroyed by a targeted Israeli strike that killed Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni, cameraman Mohamed Ftouni, and Al Manar reporter Ali Choueib 28 March 2026 (Reuters) Issam was the first journalist Israel killed in Lebanon since it started its attacks on the country in late 2023. Six others were wounded in the attack. Over a month later, journalists Farah Omar and Rabih al-Maamari were killed in an Israeli attack on another town in the south. Less than two weeks ago, journalists Fatima Ftouni and Ali Choeib were killed in a series of targeted strikes on their car as they drove through Jezzine. At least 259 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since 2023, including 210 Palestinian journalists in Gaza and 14 journalists in Lebanon. At least 64 of them appear to have been directly targeted, according to UN experts. This is why I return The repeated killing of journalists has turned the sound of drones - the ever-present hum in the southern sky - into a constant warning that we, too, are under surveillance. The moment of silence before a strike is no longer anticipation of what will happen to others alone, but of what may happen to us as well. And yet, I return. I return because war is not measured by the number of strikes or maps of control, but by the faces of people who remain outside the dry language of military statements. In the border villages, amid rubble and smoke, there is always a mother searching for her son, a family standing before a house reduced to a trace, survivors who only want someone to hear them before they are swallowed by the language of numbers and the daily tally of the dead. Here, the role of the journalist becomes more than reporting the news. We become witnesses to crimes being committed, and to innocent lives that need someone to pull their stories from under the fire and tell them to the world. We do not return to the field out of fearlessness, but because we understand what it would mean for this war to go unwitnessed. At the end of each day, after the camera goes dark and silence returns, I find myself answering the same question again and again.  This is why I return. Not because I seek danger, but because war must not be left alone, especially with those trying to suppress its story. Israel's war on Lebanon Ebl al-Saqi, Lebanon News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0