Photo: Ali Hankir Agence France-Presse The three journalists were killed in a bombing that occurred during the night in Hasbaya, a town in southern Lebanon located in an area that had been spared until then.
Jonathan Sawaya – Agence France-Presse and Cyril Julien – Agence France-Presse respectively in Beirut and Jerusalem
Posted at 7:14 AM Updated at 9:12 AM
- Middle East
Lebanon on Friday accused Israel of a “war crime” after three journalists were killed in a strike it called “deliberate,” as the Israeli military intensifies its offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The strike killed three journalists in Hasbaya, a town in southern Lebanon in a previously unaffected Druze-majority region where several media outlets had set up camp a month ago.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced the attack as a “war crime” and a “deliberate” attack aimed at “terrorizing the media to cover up the crimes and destruction.”
Israel has not commented on the strike.
The pro-Iranian Al Mayadeen channel reported that a cameraman, Ghassan Najjar, and a broadcast engineer, Mohammad Reda, had been killed.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar channel also reported the death in Hasbaya of its video journalist Wissam Qassem.
According to Information Minister Ziad Makari, 18 journalists representing seven media outlets were present at the targeted residence in the middle of the night.
“The Israeli enemy targeted the journalists' residence in Hasbaya,” said a journalist from the local Al-Jadeed channel, Mohammad Farhat, filmed at the scene on face covered in a layer of grayish dust, in front of his bed buried under the rubble of his bungalow.
Photo: Agence France-Presse A Lebanese man walks near a building destroyed by the Israeli army in a southern suburb of Beirut.
“Race against time”
Strikes also targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, one of Hezbollah's strongholds, as well as southern and eastern Lebanon.
In southern Lebanon, the Israeli army announced that it had lost ten soldiers in two days in fighting with Hezbollah, or 32 since the start of its ground operation on September 30, according to a report by AFP.
The army also announced on Friday that it had carried out a strike on a border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, which it said was being used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, affirmed that it was “really urgent” to reach a “diplomatic solution” in Lebanon, where the war that has been raging for more than a year in the Gaza Strip spread in September between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.
Antony Blinken, who met the Lebanese prime minister in London on Friday, recalled the need to implement UN Resolution 1701, dating from 2006, “so that there can be real security along the border between Israel and the Lebanon”.
UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon said Friday they were facing an “extremely difficult” situation after renewed Israeli fire this week on one of their positions.
Israel launched a campaign of massive airstrikes against Hezbollah on September 23, saying it wanted to neutralize the Shiite Islamist movement in the border regions of southern Lebanon and allow the return to northern Israel of 60,000 residents displaced by incessant rocket fire over the past year.
At least 1,580 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official data.
The UN has counted some 800,000 displaced.
A total of 163 rescuers and medical workers have been killed since the border firefights began a year ago, according to Lebanese authorities.
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, warned on Friday that a “race against time” was underway to find a way out of the war in Lebanon and avoid a “generalized conflagration” in the Middle East.
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Strikes on Gaza
In the south of the Gaza Strip, two nighttime airstrikes killed at least 20 people in Khan Younis, according to emergency services.
A first strike on a family home killed 14 people, including nine children under the age of 16, and a second killed six, said Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.
The Israeli military has only reported having “eliminated several terrorists from the air and on the ground and dismantled numerous terrorist infrastructures.”
Since October 6, Israel has concentrated its offensive mainly in the north of the Palestinian territory, claiming that Hamas fighters are trying to regroup there.
The talks for a truce could resume after a call by the United States for Israel to seize the opportunity created by the death of the leader of the Islamist movement, Yahya Sinwar, killed by Israeli soldiers on October 16.
Previous indirect negotiations conducted under the aegis of Qatar, the United States and Egypt, for a ceasefire, have not accomplished.
The war in Gaza was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or killed in captivity.
Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive against Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, which has killed at least 42,847 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, considered reliable by the UN.
Hamas said it was “ready for a cessation of hostilities” but demanded from Israel a “commitment to a ceasefire,” a “withdrawal from the Gaza Strip” and a “serious agreement for an exchange” between Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, according to a Hamas official.
These conditions have always been rejected by Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will, according to his office, send to Qatar the head of foreign intelligence, the Mossad, David Barnea, who is to meet Sunday with the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, and the Qatari prime minister.