Israeli Troops Demolish Home of Lebanese Journalist Behind Viral Pager-Attack Documentary

Radwan Mortada woke to phone calls from neighbors telling him his family home had been blown up. It was roughly 4 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, and the house his family had spent nearly a decade building in Aita al-Jabal, southern Lebanon, was gone.

Mortada, a prominent investigative journalist, directed the recent Al Jazeera 360 documentary "The Trap," which traces the planning and network behind Israel's 2024 pager attack that wounded and maimed hundreds of people across Lebanon. The film has become one of the channel's most-watched productions in recent memory.

According to Mortada's account, the destruction unfolded over several days. Israeli soldiers first arrived at the property in a pickup truck and looted its contents, then tore down the entrance. A Merkava tank was later photographed parked beside the house. Before any of that, soldiers had thrown a stun grenade at a caretaker living on the property with his family, forcing them out, Mortada said.

The house was not hit by an airstrike or shelling during a firefight, Mortada said. Soldiers physically entered the property, planted explosives inside, and detonated them, a method he says sets the incident apart from other war damage in the region. He noted the location, roughly four kilometers outside Israel's unilaterally declared "Yellow Line" buffer zone, is a residential area with no military positions, clashes, or combat activity nearby.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the demolition in an October 21 statement.

"CPJ fears this destruction is in retaliation for Mortada's work, marking another dangerous violation of international law and disregard for the press."

Mortada told The Grayzone he has no "concrete evidence" tying the demolition to his documentary, but called the circumstances suspicious given the method of destruction and the house's distance from any active front. "Israeli hatred and vindictiveness seem to know no bounds," he said.

If the demolition was not simply vindictive, Mortada noted, it could signal that Israeli forces are operating beyond the buffer zone they have claimed to be clearing of Hezbollah, a boundary Israel declared on its own terms inside Lebanese territory.

The Israeli military has not issued a public explanation for the demolition. Occupation Watch is seeking confirmation from CPJ and additional documentation of the strike.