Funeral held for three journalists killed by Israeli strike in Lebanon
Mourners carry the body of one of the journalists killed in the Israeli strike in south Lebanon during their funeral. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Mourners carry the body of one of the journalists killed in the Israeli strike in south Lebanon during their funeral.
Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images Funeral held for three journalists killed by Israeli strike in Lebanon Lebanese government calls the killings a ‘blatant war crime’ while Israel says primary target was a Hezbollah ‘terrorist’ A funeral has taken place in Lebanon for three journalists killed by an Israeli strike on Saturday, after the Lebanese government called the killings a “blatant war crime”.
Ali Shoeib, of the Hezbollah-owned al-Manar television station, and Fatima Ftouni and her brother and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, of the pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in the strike targeting their car. Israel claimed the attack shortly afterwards, saying the target was Shoeib, whom it accused of being a Hezbollah “terrorist” in an intelligence unit who had reported on the locations of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military provided no further evidence to support the claim and made no comment on the deaths of the other journalists. Hundreds of people attended the funeral, where the bodies of Shoeib and Fatima Ftouni were draped in their channels’ logos and with bouquets of flowers.
“Fatima and Ali were heroes,” a relative of Ftouni’s who gave only his first name, Qassem, told Agence France-Presse. View image in fullscreen The car that the three journalists were travelling in was destroyed. Photograph: EPA Shoeib was a well-known war correspondent in Lebanon, where he reported for al-Manar for nearly three decades.
His death was met with a wave of condolences from audiences and journalists in Lebanon, many of whom said he was considered a mentor figure in Lebanese journalism. Fatima Ftouni had also been reporting from the frontlines of the Israel-Hezbollah war in recent days, filming in front of battles in the town of Taybeh, south Lebanon.
Her own family had been killed in Israeli strikes weeks earlier. Eighteen months earlier, she and her colleagues were struck by an Israeli bomb while they were sleeping in a hotel in south Lebanon. Ftouni survived but two of her colleagues did not.
Commenting on the deaths of her colleagues at the time, Ftouni said: “It is the silence of the international community that let this happen.” The three journalists were struck as they were driving in Jezzine, a district in south Lebanon far from the frontlines.
Local television showed at least four missiles were shot at the car, and footage appeared to show a missile being fired between the journalists’ car and bystanders as the latter tried to approach and help. Video of the aftermath showed singed press jackets and helmets, as well as tripods and microphones that had been pulled from the car.
View image in fullscreen Jamal al-Ghurabi, a journalist for al-Mayadeen, holds up press vests removed from the car. Photograph: Ali Hankir/Reuters The Israeli military claimed Shoeib was a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan force, the most elite unit of the pro-Iran armed group, which specialises in cross-border raids.
It said Shoeib’s contact with senior members of Hezbollah and his work documenting the location of Israeli forces was evidence he was a military member of the group. International law says that regardless of political affiliation, journalists are considered civilians and targeting them is a war crime.
Eight out of the nine journalists killed by Israel in Lebanon since 13 October 2023 worked for Hezbollah-affiliated outlets, and analysts have suggested the killings are part of Israel’s strategy of attacking the civilian wings of the group. Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, described the journalists as “civilians doing their professional duty”.
Writing on X, he said: “It is a brazen crime that violates all …