Three dead following Israeli strike on journalist compound in Lebanon
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Mansouri village (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An Israeli airstrike on a journalist compound has left three television news staffers dead, Lebanese state media has reported.
The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers were among the journalists killed early on Friday.
Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region, which has been spared much of the fighting along the border so far.
Al-Mayadeen also reported that its camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida were both killed in the airstrike alongside Mr Qassim.
Local news station Al Jadeed aired footage from the scene — a collection of chalets that had been rented by various media outlets — showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “press” covered in dust and rubble.
The Israeli army did not issue a warning before the strike.
Hasbaya is a town inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. There have been attacks on its outskirts in recent weeks, but Friday's, at around 3 am (midnight GMT), was the first on the town itself.
"This is a war crime," Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said. At least 18 journalists from six media outlets, including Sky News, Al-Jazeera and Lebanese broadcasters, were staying at the guesthouses.
"We heard the airplane flying very low - that's what woke us up - and then we heard the two missiles," Muhammad Farhat, a reporter with the Lebanese outlet Al-Jadeed, told Reuters.
He said several bungalows had been damaged. His footage showed overturned and damaged cars, some marked "Press".
"We had been reporting from there for about a month without anything happening. I don't even know how I climbed out from under the rubble," Farhat said.
Ghassan bin Jiddo, the director of Al-Mayadeen, said on the channel's X account that the attack was "deliberate".
"We hold the occupation (Israel) fully responsible for this war crime, in which journalist crews including the Al-Mayadeen team were targeted," bin Jiddo said.
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Earlier in the week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Several journalists have been killed since a near-daily exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border on October 8 2023.
Lebanon’s health ministry said one person was killed and five others, including a child, were wounded in that strike.
Lebanese authorities say the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people, spawning a humanitarian crisis.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike killed three Lebanese soldiers as they tried to evacuate wounded people from the border village of Yater, the Lebanese army said. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
The US has said Israel should take steps to avoid civilian casualties and not endanger UN peacekeepers or Lebanese army troops in its attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.
Israel, which has been criticised for shelling hospitals and schools, has said it precisely targets Hamas and Hezbollah militants, accusing them of using civilians as shields.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that as of October 24, its preliminary investigations showed at least 128 journalists and media workers had been killed since the start of the Gaza war, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike.
A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250.
Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities.
The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The Israeli campaign has since expanded to Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion on October 1, after trading fire with the Hezbollah militant group for much of the past year.
Lebanese health officials reported another day of intense airstrikes and shelling Thursday, which they said killed 19 people over 24 hours and raised the overall Lebanese death toll to 2,593 since October 2023.
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