BEIRUT: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a residence housing media workers killed two journalists and a broadcast engineer on Friday, in an attack the minister of information branded a “war crime.”
Pro-Iran Lebanese television channel Al Mayadeen said a cameraman and broadcast engineer were killed in the strike on a journalists’ residence in Hasbaya, south Lebanon.
Another TV outlet, Al-Manar, run by Hezbollah, said one of its video journalists was also killed in the strike on a bungalow located in a resort that several media organizations covering the Israel-Hezbollah war had rented out.
“The Israeli enemy waited for the journalists’ nighttime break to betray them in their sleep,” Information Minister Ziad Makary said in a post on X.
“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with prior planning and design, as there were 18 journalists there representing seven media institutions. This is a war crime.”
Journalists from other media organizations, including Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, Sky News Arabic and Al Jazeera English, were also resting nearby when the strike hit overnight.
Israel has not commented on the strike, which, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, also wounded three other people.
The area where the journalists were located is outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
Israel has been at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon since late last month, in a bid to secure its northern border after nearly a year of cross-border fire from the Iran-backed armed group.
Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in its history.
After nearly a year of war in Gaza sparked by the attack, Israel expanded its focus to Lebanon and last month launched a massive bombing campaign targeting mainly Hezbollah strongholds across the country, sending in ground troops on September 30.
The war in Lebanon has killed at least 1,580 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
Israel’s military on Friday said it had struck more than 200 militant targets in Lebanon over the past day.
It also announced the deaths of five soldiers in fighting in south Lebanon.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said Israeli air strikes hit two homes at dawn on Friday in Khan Yunis, the Palestinian territory’s main southern city.
According to agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal, 14 were killed in a strike that hit the home of the Al-Fara family, and another six were killed in a separate raid.
In north Gaza, the Israeli military on Friday said dozens of militants were killed around Jabalia, in north Gaza, over the previous day.
Israel launched a major assault on north Gaza earlier this month, saying it aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.
The civil defense’s Bassal said “more than 770 people have been killed” in northern Gaza in the 19 days since the Israeli operation began there.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The militants also took 251 people hostage, 97 of whom are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 42,847 people, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, data which the UN considers reliable.
Multiple bids to stop the war have failed, though Israel’s key backer the United States has voiced hope that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week could serve as an opening for a deal.
A senior Hamas official told AFP that a delegation from the group’s Doha-based leadership discussed “ideas and proposals” related to a Gaza truce with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Thursday.
“Hamas has expressed readiness to stop the fighting, but Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the official said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he welcomed mediator Egypt’s readiness to reach a deal “for the release of the hostages” held by militants in Gaza.
Netanyahu directed the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency to leave for Qatar on Sunday to “advance a series of initiatives that are on the agenda,” his office said.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States have long tried to mediate a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Qatar’s leaders in Doha on Thursday on his 11th trip to the region since the start of the Gaza war.
During the trip, which comes less than two weeks before US elections, Blinken said mediators would explore new options.
Israeli and US officials as well as some analysts said Sinwar had been a key obstacle to a deal which would release the hostages still held in Gaza.
Critics of Netanyahu, too, have regularly accused him of obstructing truce and hostage release negotiations.
An Israeli group representing families of hostages called on Netanyahu and Hamas to secure an agreement to free the remaining captives.
“Time is running out,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
On Thursday, hostage supporters marched outside Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence demanding action for their release.
Blinken landed late Thursday in London, where a US official said he would meet on Friday with the foreign ministers of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
