A reporter for Russia Today and his cameraman were injured by shrapnel in an attack in southern Lebanon, according to statements from the network and video from the scene.
Steve Sweeney, a Beirut-based correspondent, and cameraman Ali Rida were both conscious and receiving hospital treatment after the incident, officials said.
Sweeney told his editor that “an IDF plane fired upon the car” the pair were traveling in as they crossed a bridge in the south of the country.
Video footage shows Sweeney recording a report moments before noticing an incoming strike. He is seen ducking as an explosion occurs behind him.
The incident follows a March 18th social media post by Sweeney in which he wrote, “Targeting journalists is a war crime…,” after reports that Lebanese journalist and Al-Manar TV presenter Mohammad Sherri and his wife were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, said in a post on X that Sweeney had been wounded in what she described as an Israeli strike in Lebanon.
“He says an IDF plane fired upon the car carrying Steve and his cameraman, as they were crossing a bridge in the south of the country,” Simonyan wrote. “Both men are conscious in hospital, doctors are diagnosing extent of shrapnel damage. War journalists are not legitimate targets. We pray for them.”
Political commentator and Novara Media co-founder Aaron Bastani responded to the footage, writing that “the only explanation was they were trying to kill a journalist. There’s nothing else there,” and adding that “hundreds have been killed by Israel in the last several years.”
Data from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows that more journalists and media workers were killed in 2025 than in any other year since the organization began tracking such deaths more than three decades ago. It marked the second consecutive year of record-high fatalities.
According to the organization, Israel accounted for two-thirds of all press killings in both 2024 and 2025, and its military has carried out more targeted killings of journalists than any other government force since CPJ began documenting such incidents in 1992.
