On 21 November 2023, Farah Omar stood in the shade of a tree after finishing her live report for Al Mayadeen TV. Beside her were cameraman Rabih Maamari and their local guide — Hussein Akil, a resident of Ter Harfa — only a few kilometers from the Lebanese–Israeli border. None of the three knew that this live broadcast would be their final one. Minutes later, an Israeli drone fired a missile at the marked journalists, killing them all. If history has taught us anything: It’s never by accident, Israel kills journalists deliberately.
Farah (25), Rabih (44), and Hussein (26) were killed while covering exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel during the first year of the war — the incident condemned by the head of UNESCO. Their murders came just one month after an Israeli Merkava tank shot and killed Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdullah (37) in Alma al-Shaab on 13 October 2023. The same strike injured six other journalists working for AFP and Al Jazeera. A year later, on 25 October 2024, another deliberate Israeli strike targeted journalists as they slept in Hasbaya, killing three and injuring several others.
Israel kills journalists with full knowledge
All three incidents share the same pattern — the journalists notify the UN and military personnel of their presence, clearly identifying themselves to both warring sides, but Israel shoots to kill anyway. The targeting was intentional and far from “exceptional.” Israel has repeatedly killed journalists — during the genocide in Gaza and in its aggression against Lebanon. The United Nations reports that Israel has killed at least 248 journalists in Gaza — more than in any conflict in modern history — in addition to 13 journalists in Lebanon, six of them on duty — since October 7. Israeli forces also struck a media center in Sanaa, Yemen, killing 31 journalists and media workers — according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Elsy Moufarrej — head of the independent Union of Journalists in Lebanon — tells The Canary that:
targeting journalists is not surprising from an enemy that represses the image exposing its crimes. That’s a war crime! Israel goes far with it because the international silence indirectly grants it impunity… There was no accountability for Israel, and that gives it a green light to continue.
Moufarrej and her colleagues have tried to pursue justice — since the killing of Issam Abdullah — through the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has been in coordination with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, CPJ, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) — yet progress remains stalled.
Moufarrej tells us:
We blame the Lebanese government for not taking any measures to ensure accountability. There should be a serious investigation here. Internationally, the ICC must be authorised to investigate the war crimes committed in Lebanon since 7 October — including the direct killing of journalists.
Had this happened, journalists today would not be facing increasing restrictions, nor would the population of the south be systematically displaced from their homes even after the ceasefire.
Ramzi Kaiss, a Lebanese researcher at Human Rights Watch, echoes this sentiment saying:
Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdullah should have served as a crystal-clear message for Lebanon’s government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes…
Since the killing of Issam, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes.
On the ground, Lebanese journalists describe a climate of constant fear.
Constant state of fear
Reporter Rola Atwi recalls the moment she and her colleagues were targeted during a media tour in Yaroun— 300 meters away from the Lebanese border with ‘Israel’ — while accompanying UNIFIL and the Lebanese military on 14 November 2023.
Atwi tells The Canary:
I felt like life stopped. I felt direct danger. I was afraid I would never see my colleagues again.
Even after the ceasefire, reporting from the south has become extremely difficult:
There isn’t a single moment of safety. Roads are sometimes blocked or monitored by drones. Even gathering information is harder because people are afraid and under psychological pressure… We’re reporting about our own people and our own households.
Local journalist Dalia Bazzi, who lives in Bint Jbeil — about three kilometres from the border — tells The Canary:
We want to impose the law. There have been thousands of Israeli violations since the ceasefire, while Lebanon has fully abided by the agreement. The truth is evident.
She describes the horror she witnesses:
It kills me to know that a little girl has witnessed death. A 12-year-old once described to me the dismembered bodies of civilians after a massacre. She ran toward the site when she heard the strike, wanting to help. No child should have to live with that.
About 45 kilometers north, in Nabatieh, journalist Tarek Mrouwe describes the same reality:
We’re cautious but not afraid. We’ve gotten used to the situation. You start asking yourself: when will this end? Why are our areas always targeted? It’s sad that the government isn’t doing much, and those opposed to the resistance are indifferent.
Covering Israeli violations across the south, Tarek notes that:
Israel targets civilian cars and structures while claiming they’re military targets—but that’s false. They strike forests, and after the fires burn out, we see there was no military site.
Dalia confirms this with a recent example:
In Bint Jbeil, Shady Sharara and his three daughters were killed, while his wife and another daughter were wounded. It’s a massacre. Are these military targets?
She adds:
We woke up one day to two airstrikes on a civilian car in a crowded street as everyone was heading to work. The first strike was a few meters from my house. Have you ever replaced ‘good morning’ with ‘airstrike’? I ran to cover the news before even washing my face.
Despite this reality, international bodies remain largely indifferent. Israel’s long history of targeting journalists — in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and elsewhere — continues with impunity. As Elsy Moufarrej put it: Israel is “oppressing the image” of those who expose its crimes—especially the journalists who dare to report them.
Featured image via LBCI
This post was originally published on Canary.