The Voice of Lebanese Journalists - Elsy Moufarrej

Courtesy: Frédéric de Bellaing

Elsy Moufarrej has always taken the road of solidarity. A union activist from the outset of her career in radio and television, she played an integral role in forming the Union of Journalists in Lebanon (UJL) in 2019. “Journalists need support from their union because sometimes you are fighting against your government. You are fighting together to protect your rights,” Moufarrej told Media Action Plan.

Leading up to the formation of UJL, Lebanon was facing dire employment circumstances. Over half the population was in poverty, 46% were unemployed, and their debt-to-GDP ratio hit %151. Citizens were facing new taxes on numerous commodities and services, including WhatsApp usage. Necessities like electricity, water and sanitation services were not being maintained by the government, so the citizens of Lebanon took to the streets for a series of civil protests that have become known as the 17 October Revolution. The protests forced Prime Minister Saad Hariri to step down along with 10 members of his cabinet.

The Lebanese media sector experienced and documented the revolution, and Moufarrej was at the heart of it: “Journalists in 2019 were fired from their companies and their contracts were changed without notice. Union of Journalists in Lebanon formed as a result.” With Moufarrej installed as President, UJL has provided an essential voice for the media workers of Lebanon.

Over the past 3 years, as conflict has escalated in the Middle East, the Israeli government has killed 16 of her colleagues in Lebanon, with almost complete impunity. Moufarrej has pressed the Lebanese government to properly document these deaths and hold the perpetrators accountable. “Journalists have been killed and the government didn’t open legal cases and files in each case. Why? Because for them, they don’t value this documentation. They are not thinking about moving this case from Lebanon to the international courts.”

In 2024, UJL applied maximum pressure on the Lebanese government to give the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction within their country. They were successful for 1 month before the government withdrew from the ICC under pressure from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Moufarrej explains, “Hezbollah has refused [ICC jurisdiction] and are anxious about having international bodies investigate. And the government are afraid of any sanctions towards Lebanon. They don’t want any problems and prefer not to invite in the ICC. We are still putting the pressure on them to document cases on a local level and have UN High Commission inquiries. The [UN] Human Rights Council can support us.”

In May of this year, Moufarrej took the stories of her slain colleagues to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), where she brought forward a motion (watch the video here) with two main resolutions: “The first point is to create a [UN] commission to investigate war crimes for what’s happening in Lebanon. We are requesting this investigation from the Human Rights Council.”

The second part of the motion calls on the IFJ and their affiliated unions to request that the Lebanese government conduct official and transparent investigations into the killing of journalists, and support UJL in their endeavours to prosecute the offenders. The motion was passed unanimously by the IFJ at their congress in May.

The killings described by Moufarrej occurred during Israeli attacks in Lebanon that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said were intended to target Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure." In addition to the 16 media workers killed (according to Committee to Protest Journalists), 135 medical workers have been killed by IDF since October of 2023. Moufarrej lives through this devastation daily, saying “I can send you video of the killing today. It’s targeting an ambulance. There is a long-lasting impunity. The international countries are facilitating this. They support Israel on a political level, sending arms and sending money. Countries that keep supporting Israel are silent.”

Her colleagues should not become statistics, and Moufarrej wants the world to know their stories: “They have names, they have lives, they have people who love them.  They are not numbers and I will name them: October of 2023, Issam Abdallah was killed. Christina Assi, our colleague next to him, lost her leg.  The second attack was on Farah Omar and Rabih Al Maamari. Al Maamari leaves behind two kids. In October of 2024, we lost 3 of our colleagues while they were sleeping in a compound that journalists use. There were 18 colleagues [in that compound] and 15 survived – we lost 3. Ghassan Najjar was killed along with Wissam Kassem and Mohammed Reda.”

As Moufarrej was recounting the heartbreaking stories of these contemporaries, she paused to make sure that I – the interviewer – was OK emotionally. This courageous empathy is part of her moral fabric and demonstrates her compassion and experience with the trauma journalists in Lebanon must endure.

She then continued, “In March of 2026, Mohammad Cherri, the head of political programs in Al Manat was killed with his family. Days later, we lost 3 of our colleagues who were working on the frontlines when they were targeted: Fatima Ftouni, who was in her 20s, was in a car with her brother Mohamed and their colleague Ali Shoeib, when [IDF] targeted all 3 of them and the paramedics. The IDF filmed the attack and they were happy. Most recently, it was Amal Khalil and Zeinab Faraj. Zeinab survived but had to act as if she was killed so they didn’t [double tap]. They attacked the house [where Khalil and Faraj took shelter] and the paramedics were blocked for hours. The last attack was at 4:30 pm, but the report was Amal died at 7:00 pm. Amal was one of the journalists who received a clear message on her phone, that if you stay in the South of Lebanon, we will kill you. She was fearless. In total, 30 journalists were killed in deliberate attacks during their work, and 11 more were injured in strikes. There is suffering on so many levels. We have lost these colleagues and those who survived have lost their homes, lost their colleagues, they have been changed forever.”

Moufarrej knows that ending the impunity for these killings will require a massive global effort and she knows the hurdles that will be there on the way: “The problem is the ICC is targeted by some countries like the United States. The impunity has so many levels. It’s very sad to see the international community reacting this way, at least on a diplomatic level. One day it will turn on you. In the south of Lebanon, we have towns of thousands that are being destroyed. This is massive displacement, which is a war crime. The international community is just watching, without doing anything.”

The consequences of Western nations staying silent and taking no action, are significant: “International law and humanitarian law will lose its value. You can’t have it in one region but not another. The sad thing is the people who have put the international law in place, are not fighting to protect it. They are not respecting human rights.”

Moufarrej’s plea to Canadians is simple: “We need not just a statement, we need Canada to stand up with us as journalists and as victims of the war. To stop any kind of support to Israel and to help us get justice. They can be the champion, and we are relying on them.”