The Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, published a statement on April 15 criticising the Israeli military for attempting to discredit Lebanese journalist Ali Shoeib, who was killed in an Israeli strike, by publishing a fake image of him wearing a Hezbollah uniform.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese political party and paramilitary group with close links to Iran, which is currently at war with Israel. The group, whose military wing is classified as a terrorist organisation by the European Union, is the target of Israel’s strikes on Lebanon.
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War correspondent Ali Shoeib was killed alongside two other journalists, cameraman Mohammed Ftouni and his sister, journalist Fatima Ftouni, when an Israeli air strike hit their vehicle on March 28. Shoeib worked for Al-Manar, a Lebanese TV channel affiliated with Hezbollah, and the Ftouni siblings worked for Al-Mayadeen, another media outlet with close links to Hezbollah.
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A ‘photoshopped’ image
In a statement published on March 28, the Israeli military attempted to justify the strike that killed Shoeib by claiming that he was a soldier “from an intelligence unit affiliated with the Radwan Force unit in the terrorist Hezbollah”.
The Israeli military further claimed that Shoeib was providing information about Israeli troop positions in southern Lebanon and that he was in “continuous communication with other terrorist elements in the Radwan Force unit and in Hezbollah”. We have been unable to independently verify claims made by the Israeli military.
The Israeli military also took to its social media accounts to post an image on March 28 that depicts Shoeib as a Hezbollah fighter. The image is separated into two parts: in one half, Shoeib is shown wearing a press vest, but in the other half of the image, he is sporting a Hezbollah uniform.
The Israeli Army published a doctored image of Ali Shoeib on March 28, 2026. © X
It turns out, however, that this image was doctored. The Israeli military admitted to Fox News that the image of Shoeib wearing a Hezbollah uniform had been “photoshopped.”
Allegations without ‘clear evidence’
Nir Gontarz, a journalist with Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, asked Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani why they had published a photoshopped image of Shoeib.
Shoshani referred to the image as a “digital illustration.”
"There was also a digital illustration that says, here, Ali Shoeib operated under the cover of a journalist, and beneath the cover was a terrorist,” Shoshani claimed. “That was the graphic. One authentic part and one edited part. In my opinion, it was clear that it was edited. We didn't claim otherwise. We also published an original photo of him in uniform.”
The Israeli army spokesperson did indeed publish another image on X on March 29, purporting to show Shoeib in a Hezbollah uniform. However, the image is blurry, and it is impossible to verify its authenticity.
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"While the army put out a clarification about the [first] photo, it never should have been distributed,” the Foreign Press Association said in its statement. “During the recent wars, it has been common practice by the Israeli military to discredit journalists and sow doubt by releasing inaccurate information and raising allegations without providing clear evidence.”
This article has been translated from the original in French by Brenna Daldorph.
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