A BBC Arabic team was driving to back to a hotel when they were stopped and dragged from their car.

Muhannad Tutunji, Haitham Abudiab and their BBC Arabic team were driving to a hotel when their car was intercepted.

They were dragged from the vehicle - marked “TV” in red tape - searched and pushed against a wall.

A BBC spokesperson said journalists “must be able to report on the conflict in Israel-Gaza freely”.

Mr Tutunji and Mr Abudiab said they identified themselves as BBC journalists and showed police their press ID cards.

While attempting to film the incident, Mr Tutunji said his phone was thrown on the ground and he was struck on the neck.

“One of our BBC News Arabic teams deployed in Tel Aviv, in a vehicle clearly marked as media, was stopped and assaulted last night by Israeli police. Journalists must be able to report on the conflict in Israel-Gaza freely,” a BBC spokesperson said.

The BBC has contacted Israeli police for comment.

  • worldwidewave@lemmy.worldEnglish
    67·
    1 year ago

    In so many ways, this attack was Israel’s 9/11. Evidently up-to-and including harassing peaceful Arabic people doing nothing suspicious.

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
      38·
      1 year ago

      Yepp! Now they get carte blanche to do their desired genocide and ethnic cleansing and media intimidation/narrative supplement.

      • EvilCartyen@feddit.dk
        15·
        1 year ago

        I mean, if they were looking to do a genocide I don’t think they’d bother to use precision strikes, warming knocker bombs, and tell civilians to flee.

        Seems to me Hamas with their rhetoric of ending Israel and killing all Jews are the genocidal part. Don’t want to see what would happen if they had the military Israel has.

        Make no mistake, Israel is still an apartheid state run by awful people, but this is not genocide. This is trying to minimize casualties in an urban combat situation.

        • • milan •@feddit.nl
          30·
          1 year ago

          They do that so they can justify it afterwards. Warnings dont do anything because the people in Gaza can’t leave and Israel knows this. It’s by design after all.

            • • milan •@feddit.nl
              25·
              1 year ago

              I know, but where are they supposed to go? The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Hamas is everywhere in Gaza. The initial deadline of 24 hours was even more impossible. These are not accidents, Israel knows this.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
          17·
          1 year ago

          While I don’t know about precision strikes, they haven’t been warning civilians before striking these past few days, and in fact many times designated an evacuation destination and bombed it. And don’t get me started on the white phosphorus. They’re definitely not avoiding civilian deaths (I mean why would you try to avoid the deaths of “human animals”). Oh, and I don’t see how holding journalists at gunpoint has anything to do with minimizing casualties.

          Israel has been genocidal for a while now, but they’ve been going full holocaust recently.

        • bunnyfc@kbin.social
          8·
          1 year ago

          That’s up to history, sadly, whether it’s genocide or not. Genocide has many characteristics, it’s not only killing a population by guns or other means.

          The definition of genocide does not care about the means, only about the goal or result.