Steve Sweeney | Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Our comrade Steve Sweeney sent us this report after he and his crew were almost wiped out by a missile fired from an Israeli jet in southern Lebanon on 19 March. Steve runs the Lebanon desk for RT, which is one of the very few news organisations that has been covering the renewed genocidal assault by Israel there.
Of course, our members and viewers will have seen what happened by now. You’ve seen the footage of the airstrike, which we are 100 percent sure was deliberately targeted.
This was an assassination attempt, an attack on journalists, a war crime, and we’re very lucky to be alive. We escaped with relatively minor injuries. I had a shrapnel wound that entered my left arm; it went through the muscle.
The health workers did a fantastic job in patching us up and we’ll be back out in the field in no time at all. We’re not going to be deterred by any stretch of the imagination.
Health workers systematically targeted by Israel
These health workers, they are the heroes. They’re incredibly brave and they’re working under extreme conditions. Of course, they are also a target themselves. More than 30 of their colleagues have been killed since 2 March―12 of them in one strike in a massacre. The zionists are, of course, saying without any evidence that the medical facilities and ambulances are being “used by Hezbollah for military purposes”, effectively saying that they are now a legitimate target.
I’ve been on the scene of a lot of these strikes. I’ve been in the back of an ambulance, I’ve worked alongside the civil defence workers who were doing a heroic job, and there was no evidence whatsoever to back the claims of the zionists, as you’d expect.
Back in 2024, the health workers themselves were again under attack. They even removed the roof logos identifying their vehicles as ambulances, because instead of protecting them, which they are supposed to do under international law and the Geneva conventions, their medical insignia was making them a target.
I have absolutely no doubt that this was an attempt to silence us. There’s been a lot of discussion on social media, asking why we were there when Israel had already said that it was targeting the bridges. Of course, we went there.
We went to a bridge, the Qasmiyeh bridge, which had already been destroyed―there’s not much of it left. There was no way that any vehicle could cross it. People could walk across it but, importantly, it sits right beside a Lebanese military post.
When we spoke to the Lebanese army, they told us: “Yes, you’re clear to film, it’s okay.” In other words, it was safe. If it wasn’t safe, they would have known about it, because the Israelis would have got a message to them via Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) to say that they were going to target the bridge and that anyone nearby should make sure that they’re in a place of safety, which is what they did when they targeted the bridge before.
When people say that we were ‘reckless’ to go there, we have to say that this is Lebanese sovereign territory and it’s not up to the Israelis to tell us where we can go and when. We are experienced war correspondents, and Ali Rida, my colleague and a very dear friend, is from south Lebanon. This is his land; the land belongs to him, so it’s not up to the zionists to say where he can and cannot go to his own land.
Ethnic cleansing and resistance in south Lebanon
But the real story, of course, is not about us.
What we were going there to report on was the attacks on the bridges, which are in effect part of the ethnic cleansing operation of the largely shia community of south Lebanon.
The Israeli operation aimed to cut the south off from the rest of the country, and about a third of the country’s territory, home to one million people, has been cleared. Twenty percent of the Lebanese population have been internally displaced.
This is an ethnic cleansing operation on a scale even larger than the 1949 Nakba, and it’s been very long in the planning. In fact, it predates even the formation of the state of Israel. The zionists have wanted this land south of the Litani River because they think it’s their biblical right, part of ‘Greater Israel’, which is why we’ve seen many attempts over the years to take this land. In the 1980s, it was the so-called ‘security buffer zone’, policed by internal proxies, christian compradors and the South Lebanese Army.
Now we’ve seen it rebranded as the ‘Trump Economic Zone’―a ‘regeneration’ project that would see the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from their land. The Israelis have spent the last 15 months preparing the ground for this, with the wholesale destruction of settlements along the border area, incursions, house detonations, the spraying of chemicals to destroy crops and the use of white phosphorus―all in order to lay the ground for an invasion and occupation.
What we were also reporting on was the heavy blows that have been inflicted on the zionists by the resistance forces.
The Israelis cannot fight a ground war, so the only way that they could take this land would be by the use of internal proxy forces, whoever they may be, whether they’re from this country or brought in from elsewhere.
There’s talk of the Americans and the Israelis policing the zone under the guise of the ‘Trump Economic Zone’. But the invaders are getting their arses handed to them on a plate―more than 30 Israeli Merkava tanks have already gone up in flames.
The battle for Khiyam is one of the key battlegrounds. This is a hugely strategically important town because of its elevated position. Whoever controls this land effectively splits the eastern, central and western sectors of southern Lebanon. It gives great vantage points in terms of surveillance and for launching attacks, and they can monitor everything that happens in the area.
But the IDF is not able to get a toehold here because of the resistance. Now Hezbollah is organising itself in smaller units using guerrilla tactics and the resistance forces have a number of defensive lines; second and third line defensive positions that they’re holding and which they’ve built up for decades. The zionists are going to find it very, very hard to penetrate those.
I think they’ve been surprised by the scale of the resistance that they’re facing―not just inside Lebanon, but also in terms of the cross-border attacks, which we have to say are targeting Israeli military facilities and the illegal settlements. I think they’ve been incredibly surprised.
Just to put it into perspective, back in 2006, Israel had 10,000 troops occupying southern Lebanon. It boosted this to 30,000 during the latter stages―military strategy dictates that an invading army needs something like a ratio of three to one (attacking to defending soldiers) in order to be able to take and maintain control of occupied land.
Now there is a different strategic balance and prospect altogether. We think something like 80,000 troops would be needed to control that part of the country south of the Litani River. This, of course, would be unsustainable―the zionists would suffer even more casualties as a result, and I think it would be unpalatable for the Israelis to see so many of their people coming home in body bags.
The situation on the ground here now is pretty intense. The Dahiya district of southern Beirut has been evacuated as the Israelis target civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is deeply embedded in Israeli military strategy―their so-called ‘Dahiya doctrine’ was named after these southern suburbs. But they’re not getting it all their own way.
Regarding our work as journalists, I just want to reiterate the point that Israel knows everything that happens in the south of Lebanon.
It monitors our phones. It reads our messages. It listens to our conversations. It has the most advanced surveillance technology in the world. It uses artificial intelligence, not only to spy and survey but also to identify targets. It has the most advanced military technology.
This is an imperialist war: it’s backed to the hilt by Britain, and it’s backed to the hilt by the United States. And this is a colonialist project in service of imperialism―the zionists want to occupy more territory as part of the ‘Greater Israel’ project.
So I hold the British government responsible for what was essentially an assassination attempt on me. I will be taking advice on this, and considering my next steps, which could include pursuing a legal case against the British government.