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Lebanese media and relatives were in shock on Sunday as they mourned three journalists killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.
Al Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni and her brother, cameraman Mohamed Ftouni, were driving in the southern town of Jezzine, far from the front line, when the Israeli drone strike hit their car. Lebanon's health minister said that a paramedic was killed in a separate strike as he was trying to assist the victims. Another passerby was killed.
Al Manar is a Hezbollah-owned television station, while Al Mayadeen is widely recognised as being editorially aligned with the group and its regional allies. The Israeli army confirmed it had killed Mr Shoeib, claiming, without providing evidence, that he was a member of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force. It did not mention the killing of the two other journalists or the two civilians killed in the second attack.
Journalist Jamal Ezzedine said during the funeral on Sunday that a mangled protective vest and helmet marked 'Press', broadcasting equipment and a Palestinian keffiyeh lying beside a charred car were all that remained when he arrived at the site of the Saturday attack.
“These were their only ‘weapons’,” he stated, his voice cracking, as mourners gathered for the funeral.
Mohamed Oneissi, a rescuer with the Islamic Health Authority, and his friend Mohamed Daher had stopped on the road to help the victims. Mr Oneissi was off duty at the time, Mohamed Karaki, a spokesman for the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority, told The National. Videos showed another projectile falling and explosions detonating as the car was already on fire.
It is not the first time Israel has killed journalists in Lebanon; the latest strike brings the total number of media workers killed since the war resumed on March 2 to five. It is, however, the first time Israel has publicly acknowledged attacking a journalist in Lebanon.
Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law; deliberately attacking them is considered a war crime, regardless of their political affiliation.
Israel in Gaza had consistently accused journalists of being Hamas fighters posing as media workers – allegations widely denied by Palestinian journalists and their employers and denounced by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as “deadly smears”.
In its 2025 report, the watchdog said Israel was the biggest killer of journalists in what was the deadliest year on record for the news media. “Israel, in particular, has repeatedly killed journalists whom it subsequently – and in some cases pre-emptively – alleged were militants, without providing credible evidence to support its claims,” the report said.
'We will not be afraid'
Ms Ftouni had survived a previous Israeli attack on a guesthouse in 2024 that killed three of her colleagues: Wissam Qassem, a camera operator with Al Manar, Al Mayadeen correspondent Ghassan Najjar, and technician Mohammad Reda.
She appeared live after the attack, holding her press jacket and helmet, covered in dust. “These are the 'weapons' for which we were targeted by Israel,” she said.
Laura Mourani, a producer for Al Mayadeen, mourned a “fearless” reporter. “Fatima hurt the Israelis because she told the truth. She stood at the border without fear, a young woman with nothing but a protective vest – that is what frightened them,” she added.
Ms Ftouni, 28, was from the southern town of Taybeh. Her origins, Ms Mourani said, gave her a sense of duty to cover Israel’s attacks and ground invasion into Lebanon.
“She was a daughter of the south,” she said. “Did she expect she might be targeted? Anyone who knows Israeli crimes expects they could be killed. But did she want to be killed? No. She wanted to continue her life, she loved life, for herself and for others,” she added.
Many in the crowd were sobbing and unable to speak as they mourned the killing of the journalists.
“All of this will only increase our determination. We have a message. We are journalists. We will not be afraid. We cannot be afraid,” Ms Mourani said.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had condemned Israel’s targeting of the journalists. “Once again, the Israeli aggression is violating the most basic rules of international law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of war by targeting media correspondents, who are ultimately civilians carrying out a professional duty," he said.
"It is a blatant crime that breaches all norms and treaties," he added.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The government condemned the move to open a new front in south Lebanon against Israel, saying the militant group had dragged the country into a conflict that is not its own and was “imposed from the outside”.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that Hezbollah’s military operations in the current war with Israel are being directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Call for accountability
Undeterred, journalists continue to call for accountability. Israel killed more than 10 journalists in Lebanon in the 2023-2024 conflict with Hezbollah, including Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah. Despite media and human rights investigations concluding that he and other journalists filming cross-border shelling were directly attacked by an Israeli tank, Israel has yet to be held accountable.
In the current conflict, Israel has also killed Lebanese freelance journalist Hussain Hamood, for which the CPJ has called for an impartial investigation, and Mohammed Sherri, the head of political programmes at Al Manar, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on an apartment in central Beirut.
Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss urged the Lebanese government to take the necessary steps to bring about justice. “There have been zero investigations, zero judicial investigations into any of the violations and war crimes that have happened in Lebanon,” he said.
He called on the Lebanese state to grant jurisdiction to the ICC to investigate and prosecute crimes, and to begin domestic judicial investigations into these breaches. “In the absence of any form of accountability, the violations we are seeing will continue, and civilians will pay the price,” he said.
The call was echoed at the funeral. “Unfortunately, today, the press vest no longer means anything in the face of the crimes being committed against us and against journalists,” said Zaynal Alawi, a friend of Ms Ftouni.
“We call on international law and the laws protecting journalists to ensure journalists’ rights. “But we do not want just condemnation, we want action,” she said.
