‘They knew who she was’: Why journalists accuse Israel of deliberately killing a reporter

BAYSARIYEH, Lebanon — Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil’s coffin floated above the crowd, draped in the red, white and green of the Lebanese flag, topped with Khalil’s press jacket and helmet.

Khalil, a 43-year-old veteran journalist with the Lebanese daily Al Akhbar, was killed Wednesday in an Israeli strike on the house she was sheltering in while covering the ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Independent journalist Zeinab Faraj was injured in the same attack.

In tears as they passed through the village of Baysariyeh, mourners gathered to pay their respects to Khalil, the ninth journalist killed in Lebanon this year. For many here, Khalil’s death reflects a broader trend – first seen in the Gaza Strip – of Israel hunting down journalists.

“It was an assassination; it was not a mistake. The Israeli army knew who she was and they killed her,” said Mohamed Zanaty, an independent journalist and friend of Khalil, who was covering events nearby when she was hit.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in a statement on The Israeli army denies targeting journalists.

On Wednesday afternoon, Khalil was passing through the town of Tayri, about six kilometers from the Lebanese border with Israel, when an Israeli missile pierced a vehicle traveling in front of her and killed its two occupants.

Khalil and Faraj got out of the car and took refuge in a nearby house. She initially told her colleagues that she was not injured, but when she came out, another blow hit her car, injuring her shoulder.

Khalil’s colleagues embarked on a desperate race to coordinate the entry of Red Cross responders in order to bring out the victims of the first attack and extract the two journalists, once again taking refuge in the house.

But it was not an easy task. Even though a ceasefire was in place, movements in the region required coordination through a US-French “mechanism” that would stop the fire of Israeli troops currently occupying part of southern Lebanon.

Despite a series of angry appeals to government officials, the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeeping troops, the Red Cross was not given permission to move forward.

Then at 4:27 p.m., nearly two hours after the initial attack, a missile hit the house, collapsing its roof on the two journalists. Khalil was last heard from about 15 minutes earlier, when she spoke on the phone with family members and Lebanese soldiers, according to her colleagues.

When they received permission, rescuers – who had been waiting just a few hundred meters away – rushed to the site. But they were attacked by Israel, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which said the ambulances were hit by a warning strike and machine gun fire.

They arrived at the scene early in the evening and were able to recover the two bodies of those in the car in front of Khalil and rescue Faraj, who suffered a head injury and is still hospitalized.

But they had to return with bulldozers because Khalil was trapped under the rubble. It was close to midnight – about seven hours after the house was attacked – when they found her dead.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Israeli military said it attacked “terrorists” in vehicles who approached Israeli troops “in a manner that posed an immediate threat to their security.” He also denied preventing rescue teams from reaching the area.

The incident was under review, but previous reviews have almost invariably absolved Israeli troops of any responsibility. After an Israeli attack killed three journalists in Lebanon last month, Israel said one of the targeted journalists was a member of Hezbollah.

But Khalil’s killing sparked widespread opprobrium.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement to Al Jazeera news channel that Khalil’s killing “must be a wake-up call for the international community to apply international law and urgently investigate Israel’s 262 killings of journalists in the region.” [since Oct. 7, 2023]and hold all those responsible to account.

“The Israeli military’s failure to prevent medical teams from helping injured civilians is a brutal and recurring crime that we have already witnessed in Gaza and now again in Lebanon,” said Sara Qudah, the group’s regional director.

Khalil, who was born in southern Lebanon and made it the center of her work, worked for a newspaper whose editorial line supports armed resistance against Israel. She has also said in previous interviews that she supports the resistance, “whether it is Islamist or communist.”

During Hezbollah’s previous conflict with Israel in 2024, Khalil told local media that she received death threats from an unidentified Israeli phone number, warning that she would be killed if she remained in the region.

But she was not discouraged.

“I debunk the enemy’s narrative that it only targets military sites by showing evidence of bombing homes, farms and killing children,” she said this year in an interview with Public Source, a Beirut-based online magazine.

“Through my work, I tried to show solidarity with these people, the people of the country. »

Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel on March 2, in what the group called revenge for Israel’s assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and for some 13,000 Israeli violations of the 2024 ceasefire. Khalil covered the horrific toll of Israel’s subsequent campaign in Lebanon.

More than 2,000 people were killed and more than a million displaced. Dozens of villages and towns in southern Lebanon remain occupied by Israeli troops.

Despite a ceasefire signed this month between Israel and Lebanon, Israel has continued attacks on what it considers Hezbollah targets and carried out mass demolitions of villages it occupies.

Khalil’s death comes as the Lebanese government prepares to begin peace negotiations with Israel on Thursday.

Many Lebanese, including the majority of Shiites who traditionally support Hezbollah, view any negotiation as nothing less than a betrayal – a notion echoed at Khalil’s funeral on Thursday, with crowds chanting “No normalization” and “Shame on those who sold their honor” as the funeral procession moved through the streets of Khalil’s hometown.