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.
