On April 22, the Israeli military carried out attacks in southern Lebanon that killed journalist Amal Khalil and severely injured another. The attacks included apparently deliberate strikes on civilians which would make them war crimes.
Khalil and Zainab Faraj, a Lebanese freelance journalist, were reporting on hostilities in southern Lebanon at the time of the attacks.
After an Israeli military strike hit a car in front of Khalil and Faraj’s, killing its two occupants, the journalists abandoned their car and ran to hide near a neighboring building. A second strike hit their car a few meters from where they were hiding, forcing them to move inside the building.
The third attack bombed the building, destroying it.
Throughout the attacks, Israeli quadcopter drones appeared to be monitoring Faraj and Khalil while they were hiding and subsequently hit.
Photo and video evidence reviewed by Human Rights Watch, witness statements, and a deconfliction request to access the site by the Lebanese Red Cross to the Israeli military, after the first of the three strikes on the site that day, indicate that the Israeli military knew or should have known that Khalil and Faraj were civilians.
>> Read a new report detailing the evidence and research into the attacks that day.
The Israeli military says it does not target journalists, but the facts and evidence show that it has repeatedly done so.
And while Amal Khalil and Zainab Faraj are the latest victims in a long series of such attacks, Israeli forces’ continued killing of journalists shows a brazen willingness to commit atrocities without any fear of consequences.
