BBC Accuses IDF of Tying Up, Strip-Searching and Interrogating Staff for Hours ‘at Gunpoint’
(Alamy Live News via AP)
The BBC has lodged a formal complaint with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) after one of its news crews was detained at gunpoint, blindfolded, and strip-searched while reporting near the Syrian-Israeli border.
According to a statement issued by the broadcaster, BBC Arabic correspondent Feras Kilani, a British citizen, along with two BBC colleagues and four Syrian freelancers, were held for seven hours on May 9 while filming in southern Syria near Golan Heights.
“The team have described how they were tied up, blindfolded, strip-searched, interrogated and threatened,” the BBC said, adding that soldiers also confiscated and deleted material from their devices. “Despite making clear to the soldiers on multiple occasions they were working for the BBC, the behaviour they were subjected to is wholly unacceptable.”
Kilani described a harrowing ordeal in a first-person account published on the BBC website. He recounted how Israeli soldiers first aimed rifles at their heads before confiscating phones and cameras and later transporting them into the city of Quneitra — located inside the UN-monitored buffer zone that Israel moved into in December, amid the collapse of the Assad regime.
“I tried to explain that we were a BBC crew, but things escalated unexpectedly quickly,” Kilani wrote.
One officer, speaking fluent Palestinian Arabic, told Kilani he would be treated differently from the rest of the crew but still demanded he strip to his underwear under threat. He was interrogated about personal details, including his children, while the rest of his team was bound, blindfolded, and subjected to the same process. Kilani detailed how material and photos were deleted from personal and work devices.
Before their release, the team was warned not to return to the area, with one officer reportedly saying: “We know everything about you and would track you down.”
The BBC said it has not received a response to its complaint.
