Three media staffers were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a compound housing journalists in southeast Lebanon on Friday at 3:30 am (local time).
As per the Associated Press (AP), a local news station Al Jadeed aired footage which showed a collection of cabins that were rented by various media outlets collapsed buildings and cars marked PRESS covered in dust and rubble. Before the strike, the Israeli army did not issue a warning.
The deceased were identified as camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV. Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region.
Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s well-known correspondent in south Lebanon was filming himself with a mobile phone and said that the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed. He said that the Israeli military knew that the area housed journalists and media organisations.
While the Hasbaya region has mostly been spared from much of the border violence, many journalists have moved to the nearby town of Marjayoun, which has faced sporadic strikes in recent weeks. Earlier this week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said as per AP.
Since October last year, several journalists have been killed since the exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border.
Two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike in November 2023. In October of the same year, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
On Thursday, intense airstrikes and shelling killed 19 people over 24 hours and raised the overall Lebanese death toll to 2,593 since October 2023.