Prime Minister Nawaf Salam says attacks on media workers have become an established pattern, not isolated incidents
Amal Khalil, a reporter for Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli strike on a house in the southern village of al-Tiri, where she had taken cover after an earlier attack targeted the vehicle she was traveling in.
Her colleague Zeinab Faraj was seriously wounded, and rescuers were initially unable to recover Khalil’s body because Israeli fire forced them to halt their efforts for hours.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the attack amounted to a war crime, arguing that Israel’s strikes on journalists could no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents.
“Targeting journalists, obstructing access to them by relief teams, and even targeting their locations again after these teams arrive constitute clearly defined war crimes,” he wrote in a post on X. “Lebanon will spare no effort in pursuing these crimes before the competent international forums.”
Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos said the killing of journalists was “a crime and a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law.” The attack came despite the much-touted ceasefire, with Israel still operating in occupied parts of southern Lebanon, keeping troops in an expanded security zone, barring many residents from returning, and reserving the right to fire on what it says are imminent threats.
The Israel Defense Forces denied targeting journalists on purpose and said the incident was under review. The IDF claimed that people in the vehicles posed an “imminent threat” to Israeli troops after crossing the unilaterally declared Forward Defense Line in the occupied part of Lebanon.
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The killing is the latest in a string of attacks on media workers. On March 28, an Israeli strike on a clearly marked press car in southern Lebanon killed Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, Al-Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni, and video journalist Mohammed Ftouni. Israel claimed Shoeib was a Hezbollah intelligence operative, but provided no evidence.
Al-Manar TV journalist Hussain Hamood was killed in an Israeli strike on Nabatieh on March 25, while Lebanese radio presenter Ghada Dayekh was killed when an Israeli strike hit her home in Tyre on April 8.
RT correspondent Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were also wounded on March 19 while filming near Al-Qasmiya Bridge in southern Lebanon. An Israeli aircraft fired at their filming position despite their visible press markings, and Sweeney later described the strike as a “deliberate, targeted attack.”
Khalil’s death brought the number of journalists killed in Lebanon this year to at least nine, according to AP. Lebanese authorities say more than 2,300 civilians have been killed since the latest escalation began, including at least 254 women and 168 children, after Israel launched its combat operations in Lebanon amid the wider US-Israeli war against Iran.