WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday that he was freed after years of incarceration because he “pled guilty to journalism.”

In his first public remarks since he was released from prison in June, Assange gave evidence of the impact of his detention and conviction to the legal affairs and human rights committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. The Parliamentary Assembly includes lawmakers from 46 European countries.

TREATMENT OF ASSANGE WAS A SHAMEFUL STAIN ON OUR FIRST AMENDMENT

A group of supporters, holding a banner that said “Thank you, Julian” greeted Assange as he stepped out of a van smiling and raising his fist in defiance along with his wife, Stella, and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson.

“Assange is free! We are here. The world is with you,” one supporter shouted before Assange entered the Council of Europe building early Tuesday.

“I am not free today because the system worked,” Assange said. “I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism.”

He added: “I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was.”

Assange was released in June after five years in a British prison after he pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concluded a drawn-out legal saga. Prior to his time in prison, he had spent seven years in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution.

The transition from years in a maximum security prison to addressing the European parliamentarians has been a “profound and a surreal shift,” Assange said as he detailed the experience of isolation in a small cell.

“It strips away one’s sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence,” he said, his voice cracking while he offered an apology for his “faltering words” and an “unpolished presentation.”

“I’m not yet fully equipped to speak about what I have endured — the relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally,” Assange said.

The Australian internet publisher was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activities were celebrated by press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed.

Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

Critics say his conduct put American national security and innocent lives — such as people who provided information to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan — at risk, and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.

The yearslong case ended with Assange entering his plea in a U.S. district court on the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific.

Assange pleaded guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. A judge sentenced him to the five years he had already spent behind bars in the U.K. fighting extradition to the United States.

Assange returned to Australia a free man in late June. At the time his wife, Stella, said he needed time to recuperate before speaking publicly.

His appearance on Tuesday comes after the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly published a report on Assange’s detention in a high-security U.K. prison for five years.

The assembly’s human rights committee said Assange qualified as a political prisoner and issued a draft resolution expressing deep concern at his harsh treatment.

Israel’s military has killed at least six people in an air attack on central Beirut after suffering losses in fighting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The attack on Lebanon’s capital occurred overnight, hitting a building in the residential district of Bashoura, not far from the parliament. Lebanese health officials said a further seven people were wounded.

The attack is the second one on the Lebanese capital this week, with Hezbollah-aligned al-Manar TV station saying the high-rise building was linked to the armed group’s health unit.

The Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Authority said in a statement that seven of its staff, including two medics, were killed in the Beirut strike.

Reporting from the scene, Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan said the sound of the explosion “reverberated around the buildings and shocked everyone nearby”.

Meanwhile, missiles also hit Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, a densely packed residential area that is also a Hezbollah stronghold and where the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week.

The elimination of Nasrallah dealt a major blow to the movement and removed Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East.

Hezbollah and Iran’s other regional allies, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq, have launched attacks in the region in support of Hamas in its war with Israel in Gaza.

The Houthis, who have been carrying out attacks in shipping lanes in and around the Red Sea that have disrupted international trade, said on Thursday they attacked Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv with drones.

“The operation achieved its goals successfully by the arrival of the drones without being detected or shot down by the enemy,” the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said.

Israel said it intercepted a suspicious aerial target in the area of central Israel early on Thursday.

On Thursday, Israel’s military said it killed 15 Hezbollah fighters in an air strike on a municipality building of the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil where they were operating.

That statement came a day after Israel said eight of its soldiers were killed in ground combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers have also been injured since the ground offensive launched on Tuesday.

Hezbollah reported that its fighters forced Israeli soldiers to retreat from more than one location along the border.

The Lebanese group’s media chief Mohammad Afif said the battles had only been the “first round” and that the armed group had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push Israel back.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Hasbaiyya in southern Lebanon, said on Thursday morning that Israel appeared to have changed tack after its losses.

“It’s had to [fall] back. It’s lost soldiers when it has come in via the ground, so that didn’t happen overnight, so it’s back to this aerial bombing campaign that Israel really has the upper hand on,” he said.

Khan reported that the two sides were trading fire near the town of Nabatieh, which has been hard hit in recent days.

“We’re still hearing a lot of air strikes, a lot of artillery coming in, but we’re also hearing Hezbollah rockets outgoing as well,” he said, citing Hezbollah claims that it had fired about 200 rockets on Israel.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it fired surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli military helicopter flying over Beit Hillel in northern Israel, forcing it to retreat. The group did not say if the helicopter was hit and there was no comment from the Israeli military.

Israel has said its ground offensive in Lebanon is largely aimed at destroying tunnels and other infrastructure on the border and there were no plans for a wider operation targeting Beirut to the north or major cities in the south.

Nevertheless, it issued new evacuation orders for about two dozen towns along the southern border, telling residents to head north of the Awali River, which flows east to west some 60km (40 miles) north of the Israeli frontier.

On Thursday, the Israeli military continued to urge residents of Lebanese villages who had evacuated their homes not to return until further notice. “IDF (Israeli army) raids are continuing,” said spokesperson Avichay Adraee on X.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that Israeli air raids had killed at least 46 people in the south and central regions in 24 hours.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks.