An Israeli freelance journalist with dual British citizenship and connections to the United States was arrested in Beirut on Tuesday, according to reports in Lebanese and Israeli media.

The Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, affiliated with Hezbollah, was said to have identified the journalist as Joshua Tartakovsky.

He was said to have entered Lebanon within the past two weeks, along with other journalists covering the ongoing conflict.

The exact reasons surrounding his arrest remain unclear, although Al Akhbar reported that he was taken into custody in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the city.

The report suggests that Tartakovsky travelled to Beirut on a British passport, but authorities discovered that he was also carrying an Israeli identity card. Israeli citizens are barred from entering Lebanon.

Tartakovsky's online profiles indicate that he graduated from Brown University in 2008 and commenced a master's programme in International Relations at the London School of Economics that same year.

Born in the US to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, he has written a limited number of articles for various online publications in both Hebrew and English.

Friends of Tartakovsky have noted that his political views have varied over time.

His arrest marks the second apprehension of a European journalist in Lebanon in under two weeks.

On 28 September, prominent German war correspondent Paul Ronzheimer was detained along with several colleagues while broadcasting live from Beirut for an Israeli news outlet. Ronzheimer, who writes for the German tabloid Bild, was deported shortly after his arrest.