BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed three journalists Friday morning as they slept in a guesthouse in southeastern Lebanon, a rare attack on an area until now spared from hostilities in the rest of the region.
It was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on journalists covering the war in Gaza and Lebanon over the past year.
The 3 a.m. airstrike turned the site — a series of guesthouses nestled among trees rented by several media outlets covering the war — into rubble, overturning cars marked “PRESS” and covered in dust and debris . The Israeli military issued no warning ahead of the attack and later said it was investigating the matter.
The dead were cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and cameraman Wissam Qassim, who worked for Al-Manar TV of the Lebanese Hezbollah group. It came after a strike earlier this week that hit an Al-Mayadeen office on the edge of Beirut’s southern suburbs. Both channels are linked to Hezbollah and its main backer, Iran.
The attack in the Hasbaya region, which had so far been spared from Israeli airstrikes pounding other parts of southern Lebanon, drew widespread condemnation from officials, journalists and advocacy groups in the press. TV crews had arrived in Hasbaya and deemed it safer after Israel ordered an evacuation order for a town further south they were reporting on.
“That is why we consider it a direct targeting aimed at taking journalists away from the south,” said Elsy Moufarrej, coordinator of the Alternative Press Syndicate in Lebanon. “They want to prevent journalists from reporting and being present in the south of Lebanon.”
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while reporting on what he called Israel’s “crimes,” noting that they were among a large group of members of the media.
“This is a murder, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” he wrote in a post on X.
Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English and one of the journalists at the Hasbaya Village Club guesthouses, said the airstrike happened without warning at around 3:30 am.
“These were just journalists sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” he posted on social media, adding that he and his team were unharmed.
Hussein Hoteit, a cameraman for Egypt’s Al-Qahira TV, said he was asleep when he woke up feeling “huge weight” as the walls and ceiling collapsed. He was miraculously rescued by colleagues who managed to move the rubble covering him a few minutes later.
He said two rockets hit the neighboring chalet, although he did not hear them. He spoke from his hospital bed, where he is being treated for thigh injuries.
Friday’s deaths are the latest in a long list of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon over the past year.
In a report earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five Palestinians, had been killed in Gaza and Lebanon — more journalists than have died in any year since it began documenting the killings on journalists. in 1992. All but two of the killings were committed by Israeli forces, the report said.
“A year later, Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has taken an unprecedented and horrific toll on Palestinian journalists and the region’s media landscape,” said the report released on October 4.
The killing of journalists has sparked international outrage from press advocacy groups and United Nations experts, although Israel has said it did not deliberately target them.
Lebanon’s health minister says 11 journalists have been killed and eight injured by Israeli fire in Lebanon in the past year.
In November 2023, two journalists from Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured other journalists from the French international news agency Agence France-Presse and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
This week, Israel accused journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of militant groups, citing documents it said it found in Gaza. The network has denied the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists also dismissed them, saying that “Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without providing credible evidence.”
Jad Shahrour, spokesman for the Samir Kassir Eyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, told The Associated Press on Friday that the bombing of press centers is a deliberate attempt to erase the truth.
“It means they are creating a media blackout,” he said, adding that it was a disturbing trend now shifting from Gaza to Lebanon.
Al-Mayadeen director Ghassan bin Jiddo claimed that the Israeli attack on Friday was deliberate and targeted those reporting on elements of the military offensive.
Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s well-known correspondent in southern Lebanon, was seen in a video filming himself with a mobile phone and said that the cameraman who had been working with him for months had been killed. Shoeib said the Israeli military knew that the affected area housed journalists from several media organizations.
“We brought the news and showed the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Shoeib added in the video broadcast on Al-Manar TV.
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Karam reported from London. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed.
