Dramatic moment BBC foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet flees live broadcast in Israel during suspected rocket attack

• Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, was reporting live
• She and her crew were forced to run from a suspected rocket attack
• This isn’t the first time Hamas rockets forced the veteran correspondent to move while reporting 

A BBC foreign correspondent was forced to abandon her live broadcast from Israel after sirens warning of a suspected rocket attack blared. 

Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, was giving her audience an update live from southern Israel on Wednesday when sirens began warning of an imminent Hamas attack, as she said: ‘This is the situation now that the…’

She is interrupted by an off-camera voice shouting: ‘Go, go, go.’

Panic can be heard in her voice as she said: ‘The rockets are coming.’

She and her crew can then be seen piling into a black 4×4 parked nearby, before the broadcast to the BBC News channel cuts away to footage of people walking through a street. 

This isn’t the first time the 64-year-old broadcast veteran was forced to move her position during a live report from the bloodiest conflict between Hamas and Israel in decades. 

The BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet (pictured) was broadcasting live on Wednesday 

A siren forced her and her crew to leave their then-location 

The broadcast veteran was reporting from southern Israel at the time

The film crew were running from a suspected rocket attack

Last week, the award-winning journalist was told she needed to move for her own safety after her team spotted black smoke rising from the area around Ashkelon, Israel. 

There was also a significant risk of mortars landing in her immediate vicinity. 

‘This is what it’s like. It’s a very, very unpredictable situation. Israeli forces are trying to reassure residents of the area, it’s trying as much as possible to talk about controlling the area, asserting control. 

‘But this is a situation Israel has never confronted before, never in all of its confrontation with Gaza.’

Several journalists have already been killed in the deadly conflict. 

The US National Press Club said in a statement on Wednesday that at least 18 reporters have been killed. 

Eileen O’Reilly, president of the National Press Club and Gil Klein, president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute said in a joint statement:

‘We are learning more about the large number of journalists reported killed during the war between Israel and Hamas. 

‘Most of them are Palestinians and they are dying in Gaza from airstrikes. For the first days of the war we were not hearing about any Israeli journalists killed. 

‘We now know that at least three were killed in the initial Hamas attacks. They were among the first journalists killed, but. because of the circumstances (one was at the music festival, one was on a kibbutz) there was a delay in their identification.

Reuters’ journalist Issam Abdallah holds a kitten while posing for a picture in Saaideh, Lebanon, July 4, 2023

Reuters’ journalist Issam Abdallah takes a selfie picture while working in Maras, Turkey, February 11, 2023

Reuters’ journalist Issam Abdallah pose for a picture in Beirut, Lebanon, September 24, 2020

‘We now also know that five of the journalists killed are women – three Palestinian and two Israeli. And at least two of the crew seriously injured in Lebanon on Friday were women.

‘There are many other journalists injured, some are missing and presumed held hostage. It’s almost certain the number of journalists killed will increase as an invasion of Gaza is looming. 

‘The street-by-street fighting will produce extremely dangerous conditions for journalists, and we are concerned for their safety and for that of all involved. 

‘We are also concerned that there is some evidence of journalists being targeted in a brutal form of censorship.’

Those dead include Issam Abdallah, a Beirut-based videographer for Reuters, who was killed during a shell attack from Israel’s direction towards the Lebanon border. 

Abdallah and a group of other journalists were covering a spate of shelling near near Al-Shaab in southern Lebanon between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group.

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