Lebanon: Journalist targeted and killed by Israeli airstrikes while reporting on the war in southern Lebanon

On 22 April, Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was targeted and killed in a building where she had taken cover from Israeli airstrikes. Rescue teams were prevented from reaching her for hours. Khalil was reporting on developments in southern Lebanon alongside local photographer Zeinab Faraj, who was injured in the attack and was transferred to hospital. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Union of Journalists of Lebanon (UJL), in strongly condemning the targeted assassination of Khalil, and reiterates that deliberate attacks on civilians, including journalists, constitute war crimes.

A photograph shows Amal Khalil, a veteran correspondent for the daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, in the southern Lebanese border village of Jebbayn in 2024. An Israeli airstrike killed the Lebanese journalist and wounded another on 22 April 2026. Credit: AFP.

Amal Khalil, a journalist who worked for the newspaper Al-Akhbar, and Zeinab Faraj, a freelance photographer, were reporting near the town of Al Tayri in southern Lebanon when an Israeli drone strike hit a civilian vehicle in front of them, killing two people. As the journalists sought shelter outside, the drone returned and attacked their car, the Union of Journalists of Lebanon (UJL) reported.

Two hours later, the Israeli army targeted the building where the journalists had taken shelter, according to the UJL and Lebanese officials.

Rescue teams were able to evacuate Faraj, who was wounded and transferred to a hospital, but they could not access the building where Khalil was trapped. The UJL issued an urgent appeal reporting that Khalil was trapped under the rubble and that Red Cross rescue teams were unable to reach her due to ongoing Israeli attacks."The Union holds the enemy fully responsible for her life and considers this a blatant crime," read the emergency appeal.

UJL President Elsy Moufarrej informed the IFJ that the Israeli army had delayed approving entry to the site where Khalil was trapped for the rescue teams. Her body was only retrieved from the rubble hours later.

In September 2024, the union reported and denounced a text containing death threats against Khalil, which were attributed to the Israeli army.

UJL President Elsy Moufarrej condemned both Israel's targeted assassination of Khalil and its prevention of the journalist from receiving medical treatment. "[...] The Israeli army adds to its long and bloody record a new and deliberate war crime that led to the martyrdom of Amal Khalil, who bled to death, after preventing ambulance crews from reaching her for nearly four hours".

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: "We are appalled by Israel's targeted killing of our colleague, Amal Khalil, and by the obstruction of rescue efforts that prevented help from reaching her as she lay trapped under the rubble. Israel's deliberate violence and its systematic killing of journalists in Gaza is being replicated in Lebanon in the face of the international community's inaction and with total impunity. Those responsible for crimes on journalists and war crimes must be held accountable before international courts."

Four journalists and media workers have been killed in Lebanon, since the US and Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran on 28 February, starting a war.