The village of Bisariyeh in southern Lebanon bid farewell on Thursday to Amal Khalil, a 43-year-old correspondent for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Tairi in the Bint Jbeil district the previous day.
Her death drew swift and broad condemnation from press freedom and human rights organizations. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was outraged by what it described as the deliberate targeting of Khalil and fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj in Tairi, adding that Khalil was found dead after rescue teams were visibly prevented from reaching her while she lay trapped beneath the rubble.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the targeting of media crews as a “proven pattern,” writing on X that Lebanon would pursue “all available channels at the relevant international bodies” to seek accountability.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency confirmed on Wednesday that Israeli forces had surrounded the two journalists and were blocking both the Red Cross and the Lebanese Army from reaching them. According to field reports, Khalil and Faraj had sought shelter in a nearby house following an initial airstrike — only for that same building to be struck directly and leveled.
The destruction of ambulances and the shelling of rescue vehicles delayed emergency teams from reaching the scene for nearly four hours, reports said. The last known contact with Khalil was at around 4:10 pm, when she called her family and the Lebanese Army, according to colleagues who spoke to the CPJ.
The Red Cross vehicle that evacuated Faraj from Tairi to Tbnin Government Hospital was also reportedly fired upon, the national news agency said.
In a statement on Thursday, the Lebanese Journalists' Union said Israel had not only “acknowledged its crime, but had the audacity to justify it” — by attempting to strip the two journalists of their press credentials, labeling those killed as “saboteurs,” and claiming through its spokesperson that the Israeli military “does not target journalists in any way.”
Egypt's Press Syndicate also mourned Khalil's death, saying Israel's continued impunity “emboldens it to commit further crimes against those who speak truth in Palestine and Lebanon,” and urging concerted international action to hold it accountable.
Khalil had covered conflicts in southern Lebanon since 2006. In an interview earlier this year, she reflected on what drove her work: “On a personal level, resistance means everything to me — whether its ideology is communist or Islamic. Through my work, I tried to stand in solidarity with these people, the sons of this land. I documented Israel's repeated aggressions — the wars of 2006 and 2023, and the bombardment that came with them. Every time they tried to seize land, I was there, watching.”
At the time of the strike, she and Faraj had been on a field assignment covering recent Israeli attacks on the southern town of Bint Jbeil.
Her killing came after a series of threats she had received — threats that the Lebanese Journalists' Union had publicly condemned as far back as September 2024, describing them as part of a systematic campaign against journalists in Lebanon and Palestine.
The obstruction of Khalil's rescue fits a broader pattern. According to Lebanon's Health Emergency Operations Center, preliminary figures covering the period since March 2 show 2,294 people killed and 7,544 wounded — including 100 paramedics and healthcare workers dead and 233 others injured.
Southern Lebanon has faced an intensifying Israeli military campaign aimed at carving out a so-called "buffer zone" through the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the forced depopulation of border villages, and the suppression of media access to front-line areas. US- and French-led negotiations with the Lebanese government are ongoing, while Hezbollah has rejected Israeli conditions.
According to a CPJ report released on April 17, at least 260 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the conflict — 207 of them in Gaza. The toll also includes journalists killed during the war on Iran, others who died in Israeli detention, 31 Yemeni journalists killed in Yemen, six Lebanese journalists killed during the Gaza war, nine more during the war on Iran, and three Iranian journalists killed in the 12-day war of June 2025.
