Teams from foreign media and news agencies embedded with Israeli army forces entered Lebanese territory near the border with occupied Palestine in Southern Lebanon in mid-October 2024. One after another, these journalists came out with reports published by the outlets for which they work. BBC, Fox News, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Reuters, The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, and others participated in the tour.

The inhabitants of these villages awoke to images of the reporters walking through the rubble of their destroyed homes in the company of the invading army. The reports did not reflect the reality that the invasion is an act of aggression, and the only voice they presented was that of the Israeli army.

This tour came approximately two weeks after the Israeli army began its attempted incursion into Lebanese territory. This operation is still facing fierce resistance from Hezbollah units on the border.

All the reports were filmed in two locations: one in the western sector, close to a base belonging to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), where the Israeli army alleges that it found a tunnel, and another in the eastern sector, where it alleges that civilian homes were being used to store weapons.

Questions have been raised about the legality of the visit and, more importantly, its propagandistic nature. While these media outlets’ decision to send their teams into Southern Lebanon embedded with Israeli forces can be interpreted as a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, the material presented by these reporters also violates journalism principles and ethics charters.

In the Eastern Sector

The BBC and Fox News filmed their reports among the houses in a Lebanese village. Fox News reporter Trey Yingst said that his report was being filmed in a “Shia village” located “nearly two miles from the border with Israel”, whereas BBC reporter Lucy Williamson said in hers that the Israeli army had taken them to a village “a couple of miles into Lebanese territory”, adding that: “We were told not to reveal where it is, for military reasons”.

Clips in the two reports show a clear match in the location. The Legal Agenda was able to identify the location based on open sources of satellite imagery. An analysis of the surroundings and hills indicates that the village concerned is Blida, a border village known for agriculture and commerce.

By analyzing the aerial photography and cross-checking it with testimonies from locals forced out of the village, the Legal Agenda identified the two channels’ filming location in Blida’s eastern neighborhood. All the neighborhood’s homes lie less than 0.616 miles (992 meters) from the border. This disproves the Fox News and BBC reporters’ claim to be “two miles” and “a couple of miles” inside Lebanese territory.

By closely reviewing aerial maps, the Legal Agenda was able to determine that the house in and around which the two reports were filmed is located right on the outskirts of Blida in the direction of the border. The satellite imagery shows that the area between the two houses that appeared in the shots and the border to the east is virtually open, containing only farmlands and a few houses.

Israel Propaganda: Stripping Homes of Their Civilian Status

On 10 October 2024, the general spokesperson of the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, filmed a propaganda video in the same location, in front of the same house from which the BBC and Fox News reporters later filmed. Hagari claimed that, “In this house, [there is] a storage, a storage of gear waiting for Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces”. At that time – i.e. before the press tour – he said that, “Every house is a terror base”.

By broadcasting this military propaganda, Israel seeks, firstly, to strip the houses belonging to the villagers of their civilian status by claiming that they are weapons caches and “terror bases” and to legitimize their demolition as part of its policy of razing homes in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. This goes hand-in-hand with the goal of perpetuating the systematic forced displacement of inhabitants in service of the plans that Israeli political and military leaders aspire to achieve.

The other goal that Israel wants to achieve by intensively broadcasting propaganda videos via its army’s official pages and stating that they were filmed in “Southern Lebanon” without specifying the location is to mislead the public into thinking that it controls these villages.

The Content of the BBC and Fox News Reports

The two reports from Blida contained a unilateral narrative that carefully avoided any criticism of Israel’s behavior while portraying Hezbollah’s response as aggressive. This narrative thereby repeated all the points about which Israel speaks without making any attempt to address the reality of the illegal military occupation of these areas of land.

Throughout the BBC report, the statements of the Israeli commanders were present, and the reporter did not contradict them; rather, her words complemented them in most instances. The report contained no balance when it comes to presenting the context, at least. The journalist did not tell us why there are no civilians there and why their voice was absent, even though she mentioned that, “We only have [the Israeli army’s] account of what happened here, and we were restricted in where we could go”.

The reporter was shown the weapons that the Israeli army wanted documented in civilian homes, and she did not question why they seemed clean and intact when everything around them was destroyed and dusty. The report seamlessly conformed to the Israeli propaganda that these homes are weapons caches. It performed the role that the Israelis wanted it to perform in repeating the propaganda that the Israeli army had been disseminating for two weeks via its platforms. Moreover, it granted this propaganda a stronger platform by presenting it to the audience as a report by a British network that professes certain professional principles.

The Legal Agenda contacted the owners of the houses that appeared in the BBC and Fox News reports. Ayman (a pseudonym) said that the house in the report witnessed his engagement and is a civilian home whose “doors are open to visitors day and night”. The home is inhabited by his family, and he totally denied the Israeli-turned-BBC narrative.

The British outlet made no effort to verify the Israeli claims, not even via its office in Beirut. Six journalists in the Beirut office stopped working in protest of the report, and two employees asked the BBC to deliver an apology for it or take accountability measures against the team that accompanied the Israeli army as a condition for returning to work.

The Fox News report did not shy away from conforming to the Israeli narrative. The reporter adopted terms like “Shia village” and described civilian homes, including Ayman’s, as a “stronghold” for Hezbollah. While he was smarter than his British colleague as he gave a voice to a displaced civilian apparently interviewed by another journalist in Lebanon, he still presented her as a passive victim waiting for permission to return.

As in the BBC report, all the scenes filmed by Fox News were ones that had been previously filmed by the Israeli army and broadcasted on its own platforms. In sum, the Fox News report, just like the BBC report, presented scenes repeated from the war propaganda that the Israeli army had been presenting via its social media for two weeks, but in a journalistic guise.

In the Western Sector

Some of the shots in the reports that the outlets published about a supposed tunnel close to a UNIFIL base showed the sea. This demonstrates that the location where the reporters filmed is the western sector. The fact that the sea appeared to be relatively far away indicates that the base they were talking about is not UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura.

In videos published by the Israeli army and Israeli reporters, moderately tall towers belonging to the UNIFIL position appear, and the site appears to be square. Based on open-source satellite imagery, the Legal Agenda was able to ascertain the forces’ position in Labbouneh. Labbouneh is a wooded border area adjacent to Naqoura, where UNIFIL’s headquarters are located. It hosts UNIFIL observation post UNP 1-31, which is operated by Italian forces.

A review of all the camera angles shows that the camera operators and the Israeli occupation’s soldiers were standing to the southeast of the base while they spoke about and filmed what the Israeli army alleges is a recently discovered tunnel. The Legal Agenda identified this location outside Aalma El Chaeb in the direction of Labbouneh.

In the videos distributed by the media participating in the tour, another tower, gray in color, appears behind a reinforced wall, exactly opposite the UNIFIL position. None of the reports identified that tower.

However, the same tower appears in a video filmed from inside the UNIFIL position and published by an Italian journalist on October 13. According to the journalist, the video was filmed in September 2024. The tower in the Italian journalist’s video matches the tower in the other journalists’ videos, and an Israeli flag is clearly visible atop it. The tower also appears in the aerial photography that the Legal Agenda reviewed, and it is evidently located behind the border wall built by Israel. In other words, it is an Israeli observation tower.

The Israeli army’s removal of the Israeli flag from the tower before the foreign journalists’ visit demonstrates an intent to mislead.

After identifying the positions of the UNIFIL tower, the Israeli tower, and the tunnel that the Israeli army claims to have recently discovered, we can see that the tunnel is located approximately 91 meters from the UNIFIL tower, 57 meters from the Israeli tower, and 30 meters from the Blue Line. Hence, it is closer to the Israeli side than to the UNIFIL position. The lid of the tunnel appears to be in the ground on a gentle slope directly opposite the Israeli tower.

Israeli Propaganda: Criminalizing UNIFIL

The Israeli talk of the “tunnel” near UNIFIL began on the evening of October 13, immediately after a televised speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed at UNIFIL forces and calling upon them to abandon their positions. “Get out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said. At that time, the Israeli army’s French-language spokesperson published a video of what he said was a Hezbollah tunnel close to the UNIFIL position that “[Hezbollah] uses to hide weapons launched at Israel”. All the media outlets published their reports about the tunnel later the same night.

Between October 6 and 13, UNIFIL forces between Naqoura and Maroun El Ras faced a series of direct attacks by the Israeli army, which wounded five personnel and destroyed installations and equipment. The Legal Agenda described these incidents as probable war crimes as international humanitarian law prohibits targeting personnel and objects affiliated with UN peacekeeping missions.

The Labbouneh position received an ample share of these attacks. The Israeli army deliberately targeted its cameras on October 9 and the entrance of a bunker in which UNIFIL personnel were sheltering on October 10, damaging vehicles and a communications system. On October 11, an Israeli bulldozer struck the perimeter of the Labbouneh position, knocking down several walls. Hezbollah has also stated that it repelled repeated attempts by the Israeli army to advance from Ras al-Naqoura to UNIFIL in Labbouneh in order to take position there. None of the reporters on the ground mentioned this information, even though signs of some of these attacks were visible from the position where they were standing.

Via three sources in European newsrooms, the Legal Agenda viewed a circular that the Israeli army distributed to the foreign journalists who participated in the tour. It imposed an embargo on publishing the reports that ended on Sunday, October 13. None of the reporters mentioned this information to the audience.

This Israeli embargo, with which all the media outlets complied, and the fact that the end of it coincided with Netanyahu’s speech and the video by the Israeli army’s spokesperson, indicates that the video reports were part of a media plan prepared by the Israel government and army against UNIFIL and set to launch from Netanyahu’s office that Sunday afternoon.

Debunking the Propaganda: Changing the Landscape to Implicate UNIFIL

The media outlets participating in the tour delivered their reports without presenting any context. All of them withheld from the audience the important fact that the publication timing was set by Israel.

By reviewing satellite imagery, the Legal Agenda observed changes to the vegetation in the area between Labbouneh and Aalma El Chaeb. While reviewing the videos that these media outlets published, the Legal Agenda observed cut-down trees, including one that had covered the lid of the alleged tunnel.

The satellite imagery shows that work had been done to alter the area’s landscape. The vegetation had recessed, exposing the lid of the tunnel clearly to UNIFIL’s observation towers.

Video showing the recession of the vegetation, between June 18 and September 26, 2024, in the area that the foreign media toured

In a video published by Israeli media, which arrived at the alleged tunnel before the foreign media on Sunday, trees are clearly visible at the location, including one right above the “tunnel”. By closely examining the video and comparing it to the foreign media outlets’ videos, the Legal Agenda verified that this “tunnel” is the same one.

Thus, it is clear that before the foreign media arrived at the location, all the trees were removed, including the one that was concealing the “tunnel”. No trace of even a stump near the “tunnel” remained.

These facts, reinforced by evidence from satellite imagery, indicate that the Israeli army manipulated the location, changing its features to make the lid of the alleged tunnel clearly visible to the international forces’ towers. None of the media that published reports after their reporters visited the location informed the audience that they were filmed at a scene that the Israeli army had manipulated and arranged in intricate detail.

Ignoring the Adjacent Israeli Wall and Tower

The location of the alleged tunnel is closer to the Israeli tower (57 meters). All the foreign media outlets, and all the reporters on the ground, withheld this information, too, from the audience. The reports mentioned the UNIFIL tower and ignored the identity of the Israeli one. The removal of the flag from the Israeli tower made it easy for the reporters to refrain from pointing it out.

The Telegraph’s correspondent, for example, began his report by talking about a “tunnel probably a hundred meter[s] from a UN compound”, whereas the shot showed what the Legal Agenda has established is an Israeli tower – information that the reporter did not offer.

The Israeli tower is relatively new, yet all the published reports ignored the history of the digging of this “tunnel” despite the importance of this information. They did not question whether this “tunnel” could be old, merely presenting the Israeli army’s accusations that it is a recent “tunnel” that was built under UNIFIL’s nose. In reality, the border region is replete with tunnels that date back to various eras, particularly the PLO’s operations in the 1970s and the 2006 aggression. Many are known to the villagers in the region and are, in fact, abandoned. The absence of this information from these reports prevented any questioning of the Israeli army’s claims.

None of the reporters on the ground tried to contact UNIFIL for its response to the Israeli army’s claims. Hence, their work was not investigative. Nevertheless, all the camera operators made sure to film the tunnel with UNIFIL’s observation towers, zooming in on them as a means of accentuating the accusation, and to specify the tunnel’s distance from them.

Everyone adhered to the Israeli army’s instructions, stuck to its paths, and interviewed only the commanders whom they were allowed to interview. The Legal Agenda has learned that the reporters were given clear instructions not to present any statement by any other soldier. The result was reports that were carbon copies of the Israeli army’s videos, featuring the same scenes and statements without adding any journalistic value from the field.

The Israeli army claimed to have found weapons in this tunnel, and this claim was relayed by all the reporters. However, no evidence to substantiate it was presented. All that the camera documented was an old ladder and an old, empty plastic water bottle. The Telegraph’s reporter, for example, went on about the use of the tunnel “to fire anti-tank missiles at the villages just across the border” without any evidence to support this claim, which was therefore essentially more unsubstantiated propaganda. Ironically, the reporter turned his camera away to show the border, yet the border was already directly behind him, marked by the Israeli tower that he continued to ignore.

The Gaza Laboratory

The Israeli army has relied on this model of propaganda work during its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza. It has invited journalists to embed with it on tours under its control and supervision. These journalists have not been allowed to speak to civilians or convey any voice other than that of the Israeli army. Unlike in Lebanon, where the media can cover the course of the war from Lebanese areas without Israeli permission, only media approved by Israel has been able to enter Gaza. For example, the same BBC reporter accompanied the Israeli army to al-Shifa Hospital and was shown, along with her colleagues, weapons that it said were found there.

This propaganda formed a justification that the Israeli army exploited to bomb and destroy the hospital. Throughout the aggression against Gaza, the Israeli army’s spokesperson has incited against the hospital, claiming that Hamas uses it as a command center even though Hamas denies these claims. The media propaganda arranged by the Israeli army at the time, and the presentation of images of weapons inside the hospital, formed a justification for subsequently attacking it and committing war crimes.

However, the Israeli army seems to have learned from its propaganda “laboratory” in Gaza as today, in Southern Lebanon, it has not invited all journalists. Rather, it picked specific journalists, thereby granting itself more censorship and control over what is published. The selection of the same BBC reporter today, for example, is unsurprising.

The Legal Agenda has learned from the newsrooms of European press organizations that their reporters in Tel Aviv received the invitation to the tour at 11:00 at night. The late hour and lack of time suppressed many discussions inside the newsrooms about the acceptability of participating in the tour.

Tightening Control over Information

In addition to the debate about the ethical and legal aspects of embedding with armies when covering wars, the emergence of press content as a carbon copy of the propaganda that the Israeli army has been publishing on its social media accounts for two weeks deprives the journalists’ function of any real journalistic value. In this case it turns into a tool to bolster the Israeli army’s propaganda narratives.

The goal of targeting and killing journalists is to enable Israel to control the media narrative. This desire for control is exemplified by the BBC and Fox News reports, which are subject to Israeli military censorship and aim to strip southerners’ homes of their civilian status and turn them into military targets, thereby helping to justify war crimes.

In addition to killing journalists to terrorize others and prevent them from accessing the Lebanese border regions, the Israeli army is striving to control the narrative through journalists who are under its instruction and target UNIFIL forces – the source of a narrative that differs from the Israeli one. When this happens, reporters from foreign media institutions transform into tools of this propaganda.

This article is an edited translation of two Arabic Articles