LONDON: Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the south of the country on Wednesday, her employer Al-Akhbar newspaper confirmed.
Rescuers said they recovered her body from beneath rubble in the town of Al-Tiri hours after the attack.
The civil defense agency’s press office said rescuers were “able to recover the body of martyred journalist Amal Khalil, who was killed as a result of a hostile airstrike that targeted a house in the town,” AFP reported.
She had been covering the Israel-Hezbollah conflict since October 2023 and was reporting during the latest war, Beirut-based Al-Akhbar said in confirming her death.
The newspaper said the veteran correspondent was killed after being pursued by Israeli aircraft, and targeted with a number of strikes.
Khalil and photographer Zeinab Faraj were covering developments near the town when an Israeli strike hit the vehicle in front of them, Reuters reported. They ran into a nearby house, which was then also targeted by an Israeli strike, Lebanon’s health ministry, a senior Lebanese military official and press advocates said.
Authorities earlier accused Israeli forces of trapping Khalil and Faraj in the town and blocking rescue teams from reaching the area after the initial drone strike, which killed two other people.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said Israeli forces had prevented the Red Cross and the Lebanese army from accessing the site, where the journalists were trapped.
The agency said in a later update that several people, including journalists, were wounded in a second airstrike.
It added that an Israeli strike targeted the main road linking the town to Haddatha in an apparent attempt to stop ambulance teams from reaching the two journalists.
According to Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International, an evacuation team was forced to withdraw after coming under attack from a warning stun grenade, prompting it to pull back from the area.
Reports said Faraj, who was seriously injured, was taken to hospital along with the bodies of the two civilians killed in the initial strike, while Khalil remained missing and rescue crews were unable to reach her.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said targeting journalists, blocking rescue teams from reaching them, and targeting their locations again after help arrived amounted to a "war crime.”
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“Israel’s targeting of media workers in the south while they carry out their professional duties is no longer isolated incidents, but has become an established approach that we condemn and reject,” he said on X. “Lebanon will spare no effort in pursuing these crimes before the competent international forums.”
Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos described Khalil’s killing as a “heinous crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, which we will not remain silent about.”
Khalil had previously received direct threats during the last war from an Israeli number on WhatsApp, telling her to flee the country if she wanted to keep her head “on her shoulders.”
Sarah Quds at the Committee to Protect Journalists said any obstruction of rescue efforts was “unacceptable and may constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian obligations.”
Separately, Joseph El-Kosseifi, the head of the Lebanese Editors Syndicate, condemned the besieging of journalists and photographers, and held Israel responsible for their safety.
Israel has repeatedly been accused by human rights organizations and press freedom groups of targeting journalists in Gaza in an effort to silence reporting, with critics warning that continued impunity risked normalizing attacks on media workers.
