An Israeli airstrike early yesterday killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon — a rare strike on an area that had so far been spared the hostilities in the rest of the region.
It was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks against journalists covering the war in Gaza and Lebanon in the past year.
The 3am airstrike turned the site — a series of guesthouses nestled among trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war — into rubble, with vehicles marked “PRESS” overturned and covered in dust and debris. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike, and later said it was looking into it.
Photo: AFP
Those killed were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. It came after a strike earlier in the week that hit an office belonging to al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. Both outlets are aligned with Hezbollah and its main backer, Iran.
The strike in the Hasbaya region drew widespread condemnation from officials, journalists and press advocacy groups. TV crews had arrived in Hasbaya, deeming it safer after Israel had ordered an evacuation order for a town further south from which they were reporting.
“That is why we consider it a direct targeting, aimed at getting the journalists out of the south,” said Elsy Moufarrej, coordinator for the Alternative Press Syndicate in Lebanon. “They want to prevent the journalists from covering and having presence in the south of Lebanon.”
Lebanese Minister for Information Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while reporting on what he called Israel’s “crimes,” adding that they were among a large group of members of the media.
“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” he wrote on X.
Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for al-Jazeera English who was among the journalists in the Hasbaya Village Club guesthouses, said the airstrike hit at about 3:30am without warning.
“These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” he posted on social media, adding that he and his team were unhurt.
In a report earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, had been killed in Gaza and Lebanon — more journalists than have died in any year since it started documenting journalist killings in 1992.
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