Despite a truce declared ten days ago, Israel has persisted in its assault on Southern Lebanon, continuing to target journalists. The latest victim was the Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who died during one such attack after Israeli forces prevented rescue teams from reaching her. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that this constitutes a confirmed war crime.
Amal Khalil had been covering the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Southern Lebanon when, together with photojournalist Zainab Faraj, she sought shelter inside a building following an airstrike that killed two civilians in a nearby car. Israeli forces subsequently tracked the two journalists and bombed the building in which they had taken refuge, trapping them beneath the rubble for hours.
Ambulances attempting to reach them were then targeted. Colleagues of Khalil, who managed to communicate with her while she was trapped, confirmed that she had survived the initial strike. She was later found dead when the International Committee of the Red Cross was finally permitted to access the site. Her colleague remains in a critical condition.
This is not the first time Israel has obstructed medical assistance to wounded journalists, resulting in their deaths. On 15 December 2023, Samer Abu Daqqa, a cameraman for Al- Jazeera Arabic, and Wael Dahdouh, a veteran journalist and Gaza bureau chief, were injured while covering the aftermath of an Israeli strike on a United Nations-run school in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces prevented rescue teams from reaching them, letting Abu Daqqa bleed to death for nearly five hours.
In Lebanon, 15 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli fire since 7 October 2023.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has also documented the killing of nine additional media workers in Lebanon in the same period: Ali Shaeib, Fatima Ftouni, Suzanne Khalil, Mohammad Shre, Wissam Qassem, Ghassan Najjar, Mohammad Reda, Farah Omar, and Rabih Al-Maamari. Judy Ginsberg, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, described Israel’s blatant disregard for international law, and the international community’s failure to hold it accountable, as “horrifying”.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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