A French TV network has received a complaint for broadcasting an apparent attempt to excuse Israel’s assassination of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil. Khalil’s newspaper said BFMTV had essentially transmitted an “apology for war crimes“.
Since its genocide in Gaza began in 2023, the Israeli apartheid state has engaged, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in:
the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented.
Amal Khalil was a recent addition to Israel’s kill list. And her murder was part of a systematic Israeli strategy to silence independent reporting in southern Lebanon so only Israeli narratives dominate. Her assassination was no accident. But BFMTV allowed a commentator to try and excuse Israel’s crime.
Israel murder of Amal Khalil was a war crime
General Philippe Sidos, previously a UN official in Lebanon with UNIFIL, claimed that, because Khalil’s employer – the Al-Akhbar newspaper – was “close to Hezbollah”, the assassination “was targeted“. Sounding like an Israeli spokesperson, Sidos said:
Al-Akhbar, I took a little look at it today, indeed, yes, it’s very, very, very pro-Hezbollah.
He added that:
The Israelis usually say that journalists who work with Hezbollah are spies working for Hezbollah.
As EU officials have insisted previously:
Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international humanitarian law.
The rulebook doesn’t say ‘unless they work for a newspaper supportive of a political party that a settler-colonial invader dislikes’. It’s a war crime. And no TV network should broadcast apologism for war crimes.
Bloodthirsty
Lawyer Vincent Brengarth asserted that Sidos:
shows no restraint and presents as obvious the fact that a journalist could be killed because of the editorial line of the newspaper she works for, in the context of an armed conflict.
And he argued:
it is essential that an investigation be opened, otherwise there would be a feeling of impunity regarding all expressions that justify war crimes committed.
The journalists’ association at BFMTV, meanwhile, condemned the “shocking remarks”, stressing that:
targeting a journalist, just like a civilian, constitutes a war crime.
It also called the appearance of such content “unacceptable”, explaining that it:
undermines the safety of our journalists on the ground.
Since 28 February 2026, Israel has murdered over 2,700 people in Lebanon, including around 177 children.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
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