Israel Kills Three Lebanese Journalists in Precision Strike
The war in Lebanon has claimed its most high-profile media casualties to date. Three Lebanese journalists were killed on Saturday when Israeli missiles struck their clearly marked press vehicle on the Jezzine Road in southern Lebanon. The victims were identified as Fatima Ftouni and her brother Mohammed, both of Al Mayadeen, and Ali Shuaib, a veteran war correspondent for Al-Manar. According to Al Mayadeen, four precision missiles hit the vehicle. A paramedic was also killed when Israeli fire reportedly targeted the arriving ambulances, marking a grim escalation in the targeting of protected personnel.
Israel has acknowledged the strike but defended it with familiar allegations. The Israeli military claimed Ali Shuaib was not merely a reporter but was “embedded within a Hezbollah intelligence unit” and tracking troop positions. They further alleged he was a distributor of “propaganda.” Neither Al-Manar nor Al Mayadeen accepted these characterisations. This follows a pattern noted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which recorded a global high of 129 journalists killed in 2025, with Israel responsible for two-thirds of those deaths.
Lebanese leadership has branded the attack a war crime. President Joseph Aoun stated that the strike violated the 1949 Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council Resolution 1738, which grants international protection to journalists during armed conflicts. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam echoed this, calling it a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.” The deaths bring the total number of Al Mayadeen staff killed in the last few weeks to six, including Farah Omar and Rabih Me’mari.
The human toll of the conflict is accelerating. For Fatima Ftouni, the violence was already personal; she had recently reported live on the deaths of her uncle and his family in an earlier Israeli strike. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health reports that 1,142 people have been killed and over 3,300 injured since March 2. As Israeli ground troops push toward the Litani River, the “collateral” damage to the civilian and media sectors is reaching historic proportions.
The regional fallout is widening. In Yemen, thousands took to the streets on Saturday to protest the killings, as Houthi rebels warned of retaliatory action against shipping in the Red Sea. The targeting of journalists is increasingly viewed by regional actors as an attempt to black out the reality of the ground invasion. This latest strike comes just weeks after a separate assault in central Beirut killed Al-Manar’s political programmes director, Mohammad Sherri.
Southern Lebanon is now a graveyard for the press. Despite the visible “PRESS” markings on their vehicles and equipment, journalists find themselves in the crosshairs of a military that views their presence as a tactical threat. As the conflict enters its fourth week, the “most basic rules of international law,” as President Aoun put it, appear to have been discarded in the push for the Litani.