Rights groups call Israel’s killing of journalist Amal Khalil ‘war crime’
NEW YORK, Aug. 09 (YPA) – Two international human rights organizations have concluded that Israeli occupation forces committed war crimes by killing Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil and wounding fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj in an airstrike in southern Lebanon in April.
Testimonies from the sole survivor and first responders, corroborated by audiovisual material, coordination records, and external reporting, indicate that the two journalists, both civilians, had taken shelter after an air strike on the car in front of them had killed two men. Over the following two hours, with drones hovering at close range overhead, two further air strikes hit first their car parked near them and then the building where they were sheltering, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its report.
In a separate report released at the same time, Amnesty International, which conducted its own investigation based on visual and field evidence, called for the strike to be investigated as a war crime.
Ramzi Qais, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the Israeli military claims it does not target journalists, but that the facts and evidence show it has done so repeatedly, with Amal Khalil and Zeinab Faraj the latest victims in a long series of such attacks.
He added that the continued killing of journalists by Israeli forces “demonstrates a blatant willingness to commit atrocities without fear of accountability.”
A Washington Post investigation published in June found that the Israeli military prevented rescue teams from reaching Khalil during a critical period while she was still alive.
Amnesty International said that, given the presence of Israeli surveillance aircraft over the area, the Israeli military knew by that point that the two people it claimed to have targeted over alleged affiliation with Hezbollah had been killed in the initial strike. It therefore should have identified Khalil and Faraj as civilians, the organization said.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 27 journalists and media workers were killed in 2026, including nine in Lebanon—among them Khalil—in Israeli attacks, while seven others were killed in the Palestinian territories.
@E.Y.M