Israel Kills Top Journalist Then Attacks Rescuers Trying to Save Her

Israel bombed a prominent Lebanese journalist’s vehicle on Wednesday and then, after she survived the attack, killed her by bombing a house where she had taken shelter.

The Committee to Protect Journalists described Amal Khalil’s killing, the latest in a series of targeted Israeli killings of reporters, as a “grave breach of international humanitarian law”.

Khalil was travelling in the town of Tyre, southern Lebanon, with her photojournalist colleague Zeinab Faraj and two others when an Israeli drone began pursuing their vehicle. The aircraft bombed a vehicle in front of them before striking their vehicle, according to Al-Akhbar, the news organisation that employed her.

That attack killed two men in the car, but Khalil and Faraj managed to flee and take shelter in a nearby house. Less than two hours after the first attack, Israel bombed the house, severely injuring Faraj and killing Khalil.

​Before her death, Khalil contacted her family and editors about the attack and the news spread across the country, prompting Lebanese president Joseph Aoun to call on the Red Cross to rescue the stranded journalists with help from Lebanon’s army and the UN.

Israel obstructed the rescue effort, a Lebanese military official told Al Jazeera, and when it eventually allowed rescuers through it attacked them, forcing them to withdraw before they could find Khalil.

​“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,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement.

The killings also violate a so-called ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

Khalil is the fourteenth journalist Israel has killed in Lebanon since October 2023, CPJ figures show. In Gaza, Israel has killed more than 260 journalists while deliberately and systematically killing over 700 of their family members, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

Since 2023, Israel has killed more journalists than were killed in both World Wars and the Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan wars combined, the Costs of War project reported.