Faraj, a young freelance photographer and video journalist, frequently moved on assignment with Khalil, a longtime correspondent in southern Lebanon with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
The two were driving behind a relative of Faraj in the village of al-Tiri, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the border with Israel on Wednesday, planning to cover the post-ceasefire situation in the area. That was five days after a ceasefire was implemented in Israel's war on Lebanon.
As they passed through the village, Khalil holding her phone out the window to film, an Israeli strike hit the car in front of them, Faraj said, speaking from the Beirut hospital where she is treated.
The women pulled over and got out of the car, hunkering down on the side of the road as a drone hovered overhead. About an hour later, a second strike hit Khalil’s car next to them, and the Lebanese Health Ministry reported that the Israeli occupation army "pursued" the pair to a nearby house, ultimately targeting the building where they had sought shelter.
‘Don’t leave me alone'
Faraj managed to pull open the metal shutter of a shop behind them and the women took refuge inside.
“Amal was crawling, she was wounded — her nose and head and shoulder and leg,” Faraj recalled, speaking with difficulty with her face swollen and bruised. Faraj said Khalil had also suffered burn wounds after the targeted car next to them caught fire.
The journalists were able to speak with their families and colleagues. Faraj said Khalil had put on a brave face and tried to assure her family that they were fine.
In the meantime, a flurry of contacts had begun between the Lebanese Red Cross, the Lebanese army, the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, reaching out to the Israeli military to try to secure safe passage to evacuate the journalists.
Clayton Weimer, the executive director of Reporters Without Borders, told the British broadcaster BBC the Israeli army had received messages from the organisation, as well as journalists, asking that it allow ambulances to get to Khalil.
"The Red Cross signalled they were unable to get through because of ongoing Israeli bombardment. So that is callous disregard, on top of what appears to be a deliberate and targeted killing of a journalist."
After a while, Faraj began to drift off.
“When I said I wanted to go to sleep, Amal came closer and hugged me and told me, ‘Zeinab, don’t leave me alone,’” she said. “I realized that Amal was not in good condition. The color of her face had changed and I realized that she had some internal bleeding, too.”
She was half asleep when she heard the sound of a missile falling. A third strike hit the building where the two journalists were sheltering.
Faraj was thrown out of the shop by the impact while Khalil was trapped inside.
“I was in and out of consciousness, and then I thought my dad had come to get me and I began calling to him, ‘Baba, I’m here, come and help me,’” Faraj said.
A long-delayed rescue
A rescue team arrived and was able to pull Faraj out of the rubble and evacuate her, as well as the bodies of the two Lebanese killed in the strike on the first car.
The Israeli military opened fire on the Red Cross ambulance that arrived to rescue Khalil, forcing it to turn back.
"This constitutes a blatant double violation: obstructing the rescue efforts of a citizen known for her civic media activism, and targeting an ambulance clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem," the health ministry said.
Faraj had lost consciousness and said she was unaware that Khalil had not been rescued along with her until hours later.
Shortly before midnight, after the Lebanese army, civil defense and the Lebanese Red Cross finally got to the scene, Khalil’s body was pulled from the rubble.
Faraj believes that “if they had gotten to her a bit sooner, Amal would be here today.”
The latest Israeli war on Lebanon began on March 2, two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran. Despite the initial ceasefire and a three-week extension brokered by Washington, Israeli occupation forces have continued to carry out indiscriminate bombardment and currently occupy territory in southern Lebanon.
By destroying critical bridges and roads, the Israeli occupation military has severed territory south of the Litani River from the rest of the country, establishing a de facto occupation similar to the one it has imposed in its genocidal war on Gaza.
Lawmaker Ali Fayyad, a member of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, characterized the occupation and continued Israeli "field actions", including assassinations, shelling, and village demolitions, as proof that the ceasefire is meaningless.
Israel threatens Khalil
Faraj believes the journalists were deliberately targeted, noting that Khalil had previously disclosed receiving threats from an Israeli number during her coverage of the 2024 war. According to Khalil, those messages warned her to stop reporting and explicitly threatened, "We will separate your head from your shoulders if you don't leave the south."
The messages also demonstrated active tracking by including precise details of her movements between southern villages, with one stating, "We know where you are and we will reach you when the time comes."
Days before Khalil's death, Avichay Adraee, an Israeli army spokesperson, in a post on X reposted a video from Al-Akhbar showing Khalil rescuing a cat from the rubble of a destroyed building. He called the newspaper “terrorist media speaking on behalf of Hezbollah, the devil."
The Committee to Protect Journalists, an international watchdog, in a statement called his post “incitement.”
“Under international humanitarian law, journalists, as civilians, are protected from direct and indiscriminate attack, regardless of the positions or affiliation of their media outlets, provided they do not directly participate in hostilities," the group said. “There is no evidence that Khalil or Faraj were directly participating in hostilities."
"The repeated strikes on the same location, the targeting of an area where journalists were sheltering, and the obstruction of medical and humanitarian access constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law," said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah.
The CPJ has called for an international investigation into Khalil’s killing, warning that Israel’s obstruction of rescue efforts may amount to a war crime.
Israel has a history of systematic killings of journalists in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories. Nine journalists have been killed by Israeli strikes since March 2. In total, Israel killed nearly 2,500 people in Lebanon in the latest war on the country, including 277 women, 177 children and 100 health workers.
Global health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), have warned that these casualties -- which include hundreds of children -- have placed a catastrophic strain on the nation's medical system.
The Israeli bombing has also triggered a massive humanitarian crisis, displacing over one million people -- roughly one in five Lebanese.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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