Beirut: Three journalists died in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Saturday while reporting on the escalating Israel-Hezbollah war, their networks announced.
Al-Manar TV, affiliated with Hezbollah, confirmed the death of veteran correspondent Ali Shoeib, who had covered southern Lebanon for the channel for nearly three decades, AP reported.
In a statement, al-Manar described the incident as an “Israeli airstrike [that] targeted journalists, leading to the ‘martyrdom of the icon of resistance media.'” The network hailed Shoeib as “distinguished by his professional and credible reporting of events” and did not respond to Israeli claims against him.
The Israeli military acknowledged targeting Shoeib, accusing him without evidence of being a Hezbollah intelligence operative. It alleged he was “operating systematically to expose the locations of [Israeli] soldiers operating in southern Lebanon,” while also “maintaining contact with Hezbollah militants and inciting against Israeli troops and civilians.”
Meanwhile, Pan-Arab Al Mayadeen TV, based in Beirut, reported that the same strike in the Jezzine district killed reporter Fatima Ftouni and her brother Mohammed, a video journalist. Ftouni had just broadcast a live report from southern Lebanon moments earlier.
Lebanon’s top leaders swiftly denounced the attack. President Joseph Aoun labelled it a “flagrant crime that violates all laws and agreements that protect journalists.”
Israel’s statement omitted mention of Ftouni and Mohammed. The claims are in line with prior Israeli accusations against Palestinian journalists killed in its Gaza campaign against Hamas, whom it described as militants masquerading as reporters.
The incident occurred days after another Israeli strike on a central Beirut apartment that killed Mohammed Sherri, al-Manar TV’s head of political programmes, and his wife. Since the current Israel-Hezbollah fighting began on March 2, Israeli aircraft have repeatedly hit Hezbollah civilian infrastructure, such as al-Manar’s headquarters and Al-Nour radio station.
These latest fatalities bring the total number of journalists and media workers killed in Lebanon this year to five, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That tally includes freelance photojournalist Hussain Hamood, a former al-Manar collaborator, who died Wednesday in an airstrike in the southern city of Nabatieh.
