RT reporter Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida are in the hospital today after sustaining injuries in an Israeli airstrike against them just north of the city of Tyre. The attack came as they were covering a previous Israeli airstrike in the area, and there was footage available of the direct attack on the crew.
Rida, the cameraman who was filming at the time of the attack, issued a statement saying he believed they were deliberately targeted despite being clearly marked as press. The IDF, however, maintains that they were simply targeted for being south of the river after Israeli warnings to evacuate and that “sufficient time had passed” for people to flee the area.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying they did not consider the Israeli strike “accidental” and urging UNESCO to condemn the attack on the journalists as a crime. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a similar statement demanding an investigation into the matter.
❗️ Moment Israel DIRECTLY HITS RT crew https://t.co/cxNTq2htyY pic.twitter.com/IWLmKGHwSj
— RT (@RT_com) March 19, 2026
“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted – this is a clear binding legal obligation,” noted CPJ regional director Sara Qudah. “Striking reporters who are clearly marked as a press constitutes a violation of international law.”
While the IDF maintains its not a violation of international law because a blanket evacuation order existed, the attack did not target any sort of military target or facility, but rather directly struck a filming location of a marked press crew, and the evacuation order is not a blanket legal cover to attack every civilian in a broad region of the country, even if Israel is treating it as such.
Steve Sweeney has been a correspondent for RT since 2022, and before that was the international editor for the Morning Star newspaper in the UK. The extent of his injuries are not confirmed, but media reports suggest he is conscious and expected to survive.
