International news section 25-10-2024

Three local journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike overnight, Lebanese state media NNA said Friday, with a pro-Iran broadcaster adding that the raids targeted a residence of press workers in southeastern Lebanon.

Israeli military planes struck at 3:30 a.m. near the Syrian border, leaving three dead, NNA said.

Pro-Iran Lebanese television channel Al Mayadeen said its cameraman Ghassan Najjar, as well as broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda, were killed in the Israeli airstrike targeting a “journalists’ residence in Hasbaya, South Lebanon.”

Al Mayadeen said Najjar “was a father who risked his life for a just cause, dedicated to revealing the truth, and was killed in cold blood.”

Al Mayadeen said Wednesday that a previous Israeli strike had hit an office it had vacated in Beirut.

Another TV outlet, Al-Manar, which is run by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, said its photographer Wissam Qassem was also killed in the Israeli strike in Hasbaya.

Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary accused Israel of intentionally targeting journalists in a strike on the country’s south that killed three journalists, which he described as a “war crime.”

“The Israeli enemy waited for the journalists’ nighttime break to betray them in their sleep…. This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with prior planning and design, as there were 18 journalists there representing seven media institutions. This is a war crime,” Makary said in a post on X.

After nearly a year of war in Gaza, Israel expanded its focus to Lebanon a month ago, vowing to secure its northern border against near-daily attacks by Hamas ally Hezbollah.

It launched a massive bombing campaign targeting mainly Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon and sent in ground troops on September 30.

Over 100 journalists killed

In Beirut’s southern Choueifat Al-Amrousieh area, Israeli warplanes “destroyed two buildings and ignited a large fire, and black smoke covered the area,” according to NNA.

“The raid that targeted the Saint Therese area also caused the collapse of two buildings near the Constitutional Council.”

Israel had earlier issued evacuation warnings for the Hezbollah bastion following intense assaults the night before.

“You are located near facilities and sites belonging to Hezbollah, which the Israeli Defense Forces will be targeting in the near future,” said the Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee in a post on X that included maps of the locations.

AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke rising from Beirut’s south following the strikes, and AFP correspondents in the capital heard loud bangs.

On Wednesday evening, Israeli strikes leveled six buildings in south Beirut, state media and AFP footage showed, with Israel’s army saying it had hit Hezbollah weapons production facilities “under and inside civilian buildings.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least 128 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.