AN ISRAELI airstrike on a journalist compound has left three television news staffers dead, Lebanese state media has reported.
The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers were among the journalists killed early on Friday.
Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region, which has been spared much of the fighting along the border so far.
Al-Mayadeen also reported that its camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida were both killed in the airstrike alongside Mr Qassim.
Local news station Al Jadeed aired footage from the scene — a collection of chalets that had been rented by various media outlets — showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “press” covered in dust and rubble.
The Israeli army did not issue a warning before the strike.
It comes the day after broadcaster Al Jazeera rejected a claim from the Israeli military that six of its journalists based in Gaza are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Israel has already killed over 100 journalists & media workers in Gaza. They have now effectively put a hit on the remaining few journalists left in North Gaza. Where's the outrage from UK & Western journalists when their fellow professionals are being killed with such impunity? https://t.co/WZipEr1Qdo
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 23, 2024
The Committee to Protect Journalists also said it was “aware of accusations” and said Israel had “repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence”.
Earlier in the week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Several journalists have been killed since a near-daily exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border on October 8 2023.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike.
A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
School-turned-shelter strike
The latest strike on Lebanon comes the day after an Israeli strike on a school where displaced people were sheltering killed at least 17 people, according to Palestinian medial officials.
They said nearly all of the victims were women and children while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants in a command and control centre inside the school, without providing evidence.
Among the dead were 13 children under the age of 18 and three women, according to the hospital’s records.
Israel has carried out several strikes on schools-turned-shelters in recent months, saying it precisely targets Hamas militants hiding out among civilians.
Health workers in besieged northern Gaza meanwhile warned of a catastrophic situation there, where Israel has been waging an air and ground offensive for more than two weeks.
The director of a hospital said it is running short on supplies and first responders said they can no longer rescue people.
