BEIRUT: A news crew from MTV Lebanon was attacked on Tuesday evening while attempting to cover the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a south Beirut suburb.
As journalist Nawal Berry and cameraman Dany Tanios approached the site of the strike in Beirut, they were assaulted by four unidentified men, who broke their equipment, including the camera.
On July 30, Israel claimed its airstrike on Haret Hreik killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr.
The strike, the Israeli military said, was in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The raid on Haret Hreik targeted a residential building, according to local media, killing at least three people, wounding 74 others, and causing significant damage.
“Until now, I have no clue if there were civilian casualties,” Berry said in a televised interview last night.
She told MTV presenter Ralph Doumit that while “our main concern was to find out whether there were civilian deaths and casualties,” they now felt a responsibility to condemn the attack on journalists.
“We got attacked and humiliated,” she said, adding that “as a journalist, it is my responsibility to speak out against this assault on media workers.
“If I passively go home and stay silent, it means I’m accepting that any journalist can be attacked while doing their job.”
Recounting the events, Berry said that she and her colleague quickly made their way to the site of the airstrike since “there wasn’t enough information from the scene — we couldn’t confirm if there were any casualties, but the damage seemed significant.”
She explained that her team had heard that Israel was likely to strike Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut in retaliation for a rocket attack on a football field in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights.
Israel accused Hezbollah of deliberately targeting civilians in Majdal Shams on July 28, two days before the strike on Haret Hreik. The Lebanese militant group quickly denied any responsibility for the attack, the AP news agency reported.
“My colleague Dany and I were prepared (to cover the anticipated strike) in Beirut, and we arrived (in southern Beirut) two hours before it happened,” Berry said.
“When it happened, we rushed to the site to see if there were any citizens or casualties — we went there to cover the events.”
As the two journalists drew closer to the site, and after they got permission from a few men who seemed to be guarding the road, four men surrounded them and struck Tanios, who was carrying the MTV camera.
“I rushed to Dany’s aid,” Berry said. “I argued with one of them that I was only doing my job and needed to get closer to the scene, when a man who was about two meters tall slapped me across the face.”
The MTV reporter was shocked that the attackers would hit a woman.
“You might argue there is no difference between a man and a woman while on the field, but this is the first time someone has physically assaulted me,” she said.
“I can’t accept that there is someone who would hit a woman, this never happened to me before,” she said. “I got slapped and smacked, and there was a man on a motorcycle who hit me on my side.”
She described the incident as the result of the “insanity of a few young men.”
Stressing that she was not implying the incident occurred because “some people think MTV is anti-Dahyeh (Beirut’s southern suburbs).”
“We covered the war in South Lebanon from day one with complete transparency and impartiality,” she said. “At no point were we anything but neutral.”
Since Oct. 8, after Israel launched its military assault on Palestine’s Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly Hamas attack, the Israeli military has been exchanging strikes with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Tanios, who said he was in good health, said during the same interview that when a few men saw the MTV logo on his camera, they attacked him and his colleague.
“They asked what we were covering, and I told them we’re here to cover the event that took place here,” he recounted. “I told them we’re your siblings; we’re here to support you, we’re not against you.
“One of them first punched me in the head then kicked me. He then began punching me again.”
Slamming the attackers, Berry told her host that if a few people “have a problem with MTV,” the journalists working for the channel should not pay the price.
This is not the first time Berry and her team have been assaulted by Hezbollah loyalists. During the early days of the Oct. 17 revolution in 2019, she and her team faced a violent attack and had their camera smashed.
Supporters of the militant group Hezbollah have a history of assaulting and threatening journalists. Targets have included Layal Alekhtiar, who received death threats in 2021 and faced legal action last year for interviewing an Israeli spokesperson; Dima Sadek, who was harassed and threatened after her phone was stolen during a protest in 2022; and Ali Al-Amin, who was hospitalized following an assault in 2018.
