At least three media staff are reported to have been killed by an Israeli airstrike on a compound that housed them in southeast Lebanon, according to the Lebanese National News Agency on Friday.
The attack took place earlier in the day and only targeted the Hasbaya area, which to date has not experienced the ferocious combat that has been witnessed along the border.
Those who perished in the attack include two employees of Al Mayadeen TV, Lebanon-based pan-Arab media station. Al-Mayadeen said it lost its camera operator, Ghassan Najar, and a broadcast technician has also been killed as well, Mohammed Rida. Moreover, the Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV said that its camera operator, Wissam Qassim, was killed in the strike.
Al Jadeed local news station aired clips from the scene, which was a row of seemingly rented chalets by different media houses. The scenes bewailed the destruction that ensued in the attack’s aftermath; buildings and vehicles with ‘PRESS’ inscribed on their surface were covered in dust and drops. More worrying, though, was the fact that the Israeli army did not bother to give any warning before the airstrike happened, something which poses a lot of danger to journalists who travel to conflict areas in the world.
This attack is part of worsening violence since border exchanges of fire began on October 8, 2023. Accidents and fatalities amongst journalists have occurred severally due to the vulnerability they experience whenever they are covering areas of conflict.
On Monday, an Israeli strike also destroyed an Al-Mayadeen office located in the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, as stated by Lebanon’s Health Ministry, therefore showing how dangerous it is for the media people in the area. Global organizations keep urging governments to observe the safety of journalists in the regions of armed conflicts, proving that they perform the crucial job of informing the public on the battlefields.
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