Israeli air strike kills journalists in southern Lebanon

An Israeli attack on a compound housing media workers in southern Lebanon has killed at least three journalists and wounded several others as they slept in guesthouses in Hasbaiyya.

Local media aired footage from the scene on Friday showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “press” covered in dust and rubble.

The victims were identified as cameraman Ghassan Najjar and engineer Mohamed Reda who worked for Al Mayadeen, the pan-Arab TV channel said. Al-Manar TV said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed.

Journalists have been regularly targeted and faced unprecedented dangers while covering Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

In November last year, two journalists for Al Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike, which the network said was deliberate.

A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from the AFP news agency and Al Jazeera.

The killing of journalists has prompted an international outcry from press advocacy groups and the United Nations, although Israel has said it does not deliberately target them.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, a media watchdog, said on Thursday that it had preliminarily counted 128 journalists killed in Gaza since the war began last October.