An airstrike at approximately 3:30am on 25th October hit a compound housing 18 journalists from multiple media outlets in south Lebanon’s Hasbaya area.
Footage from the scene showed how the strike turned the site – a series of chalets nestled among trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war – into rubble, with cars marked “PRESS” overturned and covered in dust and debris and at least one satellite dish for live broadcasting totally destroyed.
According to the Associated Press, the Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike and later said it was looking into it.
AP reports identified the three journalists killed as camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of 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.
L’Orient le Jour reported Lebanon’s acting information minister, Ziad Makary, describing the attack “as an assassination.” Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law.
Several other journalists were also wounded in the attack, including Elie Abou Asle from al-Jadeed, Ali Mortada from Al Jazeera, photographer Hassan Hoteit from al-Qahera, photographer Zakaria Fadela from the Lebanese production company ISOL, and Youmna Fawaz, a correspondent for MTV.
According to L’Orient le Jour, the Israeli army had destroyed al-Mayadeen’s office in Jnah, in Beirut’s southern suburbs following an airstrike on Wednesday night. The channel’s team had already been evacuated from the building.
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