Germany’s Bild: Beirut correspondent arrested after live interview with Israeli outlet
News site’s team in Lebanon taken from hotel, blindfolded by ‘unknown men,’ after one spoke to Israeli public broadcaster Kan in aftermath of Nasrallah assassination
Germany’s Bild news site said on Wednesday that several of its journalists were arrested in Beirut and taken for questioning the day after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s assassination and following one correspondent’s live interview with an Israeli broadcaster.
Bild said its correspondent Paul Ronzheimer and his team were taken from their hotel rooms, handcuffed and blindfolded, to an unknown location. It described those who made the arrest as “unknown men,” and added that they were said to have been members of Lebanon’s military intelligence service.
While the outlet didn’t note the reason for the arrests, Hebrew media said that they came a day after Ronzheimer gave a live TV interview to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster. It was possibly the first live broadcast from Beirut on Israeli television since the IDF withdrew from the Lebanese capital in 1982.
Bild said Ronzheimer was released later the same day, after Germany’s embassy in Beirut contacted Lebanese authorities, who intervened. He then continued reporting but decided to leave Lebanon, only after which Bild revealed the ordeal.
“Regardless of the fact that we were arrested, interrogated and imprisoned, it is currently very difficult for many reporters to report on what is happening,” the report quoted Ronzheimer as saying. “I will of course continue to report on this war,” he added.
Ronzheimer said Hezbollah hardly issues permits to journalists anymore, according to the Bild report, adding that Belgian reporters were also beaten and attacked by Hezbollah supporters in Beirut.
The article added that on the morning of his arrest, Hezbollah distributed photos of Ronzheimer via WhatsApp and accused him of violating conditions.
Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Iranian-backed terror group through decades of conflict with Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 27.
In Ronzheimer’s interview with Kan, he was asked what Lebanese media reports were saying regarding whether or not Nasrallah is dead, to which the journalist responds that “it’s not clear what has really happened there, if Nasrallah is dead or wounded.”
The assassination followed a week of intensified Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in which the IDF killed the vast majority of the organization’s top leadership.
On September 30, Israel announced that it would be conducting “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon, with the goal of demolishing the terror group’s infrastructure in the border area, especially in the villages adjacent to Israel, to enable residents of the north of Israel to return home.
Northern Israel has come under near-daily rocket fire from Hezbollah since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year, triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel.
Following Israel’s announcement, Germany said it evacuated a number of nonessential staff, families of embassy workers and German nationals who were medically vulnerable out of Lebanon and would continue to support others trying to leave the country.
The German foreign ministry had already raised its crisis level for missions in Beirut, Ramallah and Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, its embassies have remained operational.
There are currently 1,800 registered German citizens in Lebanon, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
