2 journalists killed in Israeli airstrike
BEIRUT — An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed two journalists who were reporting for a Beirut-based TV station on military activity along the border with Israel, according to Lebanese officials and the broadcaster. A separate strike killed four militants with the Palestinian group Hamas, officials said.
The Pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, identified the journalists killed in the town of Tair Harfa as correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari. It said they were “martyred by treacherous Israeli targeting.”
The airstrike that hit the journalists also killed a Lebanese civilian, Hussein Akil, according to Al-Mayadeen and Lebanon’s state media.
The Israeli military said its soldiers took action against a reported threat posed by a weapons launching area in southern Lebanon. It said the attack was under review.
“We are aware of a claim regarding journalists in the area who were killed as a result,” the military said. “This is an area with active hostilities, where exchanges of fire occur. Presence in the area is dangerous.”
The deaths bring the number of journalists who have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began last month to at least 50, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Most were Palestinian journalists working in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon on Oct. 14 killed Reuters video journalist Issam Abduallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
The first month of the Israel-Gaza war is now the deadliest month for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992.
Elsewhere in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, an Israeli drone strike in the village of Chaatiyeh near the Mediterranean coast killed four members of Hamas, the Palestinian official and Lebanese security official said.
The Palestinian official identified the four as members of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. The Lebanese security official also confirmed that they were members of Hamas but did not say if they were from the group’s military wing.
Another Lebanese security official said the dead included Khalil Kharraz, the deputy chief of Qassam Brigades in Lebanon. Lebanese authorities briefly detained Kharraz in 2014 after he was blamed for firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal military information.
The Lebanon-Israel border has seen daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli troops. The clashes began a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel and have raised concerns that Iran-backed Hezbollah will join the Hamas-Israel war.
Hezbollah’s media office vowed in a statement that the killing of the journalists “will not pass without retaliation.”
Hours later, Hezbollah said in a statement that it struck an Israeli intelligence unit inside a home in northern Israel with two missiles in retaliation for the killing of journalists and civilians on the Lebanese side of the border. It said the people inside the home located near Kibbutz Manara were killed or wounded.
Local media reported several other Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
State-run National News Agency said Israel’s military struck the outskirts of the villages of Teir Harfa and Majdal Zoun. It also reported that another strike on a home in the border village of Kfar Kila killed a woman and wounded her granddaughter.