A British journalist was hit by a missile while filming a report in Lebanon, which is currently being invaded by neighbouring country Israel.Steven Sweeney was in Lebanon working for Russia Today, Russia’s state funded broadcaster, when he was on camera and talking about rocket attacks before one could be heard overhead.It then impacted the bridge behind him and exploded, knocking the camera to the ground and throwing debris into the air, Sweeney could be heard swearing in the aftermath while other voices shouted in the background and the journalist repeatedly asked ‘where’.Sweeney, who claimed in a post last year he was ‘effectively exiled from my home country’ after being detained by counter-terrorism officials at Heathrow, had yesterday (18 March) posted on social media that ‘targeting journalists is a war crime’ in response to the death of Mohammad Sherri, director of political programmes for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV.
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan claimed that Sweeney had been ‘wounded by an Israeli strike in Lebanon’, saying a car with him and his cameraman in it had been fired on by an IDF plane while crossing a bridge in the south of Lebanon.According to her, both of the men involved in the blast were in hospital and conscious, with doctors examining them for shrapnel damage.The BBC reports that Israel has been targeting bridges in the south of Lebanon, and that the Israeli military said in the hours before the strikes it would be targeting crossing points over the Litani river it claimed were being used by Hezbollah to move people and weapons.Lebanon has been drawn into the war between Israel, the US and Iran after Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, fired missiles into Israel as part of retaliatory strikes.Israel’s response was missile strikes of its own into Lebanon, followed by a ground invasion with troops.