Seven BBC Arabic employees suspended their work on Monday in protest over the news agency’s report from South Lebanon, where its reporters were embedded with the Israeli army attempting to invade the area.
The employees, Sanaa al-Khoury, Mohammad Hamdar, Marie-Josee Azzi and Joy Slim, along with three others from the BBC Extra team, stated that they would not return to their jobs unless the agency issued an apology or held the team that accompanied the Israeli army accountable.
The report, broadcast two days ago, shows BBC crew inside the Zionist military vehicles interviewing the IOF who managed to advance only few miles within the Lebanese territories.
Hezbollah on Monday lashed out at the BBC, saying the British media outlet had breached the Lebanese sovereignty and press ethics as one of its teams accompanied Israeli occupation forces as they entered a Lebanese village at the border with occupied Palestine.
“It was not enough for the BBC, in all platforms and languages, to blindly side with murderers and criminals and justify the Zionist barbarism against the Palestinian – Lebanese peoples. Rather, it impudently sent a press team that entered one of the southern villages, accompanied by the occupation army, in a breach of the Lebanese territories’ sanctity and sovereignty, as well as the applicable Lebanese laws, as reported by the media outlet itself,” statement by Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office read.
“Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office denounces this unjustifiable and unacceptable move as it calls on the Ministry of Information, the National Media Council, and relevant judicial and security authorities to take legal action against the BBC and its teams operating in Lebanon,” the statement added.
It also urged press syndicates and free media outlets across the world to condemn BBC’s act.
In the last few days, BBC’s Lucy Williamson accompanied the Israeli enemy forces to a village a couple of miles into Lebanese territory, where it had just established “some level of control,” the reporter said in a report published on Saturday.
Source: Websites
