A Lebanese journalist was killed Wednesday in an Israeli ai rstrike on a house in southern Lebanon where she had taken cover while reporting. Her body was only retrieved from the rubble hours later, rescue workers said.
The daily Al-Akhbar newspaper says its reporter Amal Khalil was killed in the southern village of al-Tiri. She took cover in a house after an earlier Israeli air strike hit near the car she was travelling in with another colleague.
The Lebanese health ministry said the first strike killed two people. A second Israeli strike then hit the house in al-Tiri where Khalil and her colleague Zeinab Faraj had taken cover.
At first, rescue workers were able to get to Faraj, who was seriously wounded, and retrieve the bodies of two killed in the first air strike. But they were fired on by Israeli forces so they were forced to halt attempts to reach Khalil, the ministry said.
It added that Israel’s military “prevented the completion of the humanitarian mission by firing a sound grenade and live ammunition at the ambulance.”
Khalil remained under the rubble for hours before the Lebanese army, civil defence, and the Lebanese Red Cross were able to get to the scene hours later. Khalil’s body was retrieved shortly before midnight, at least six hours after the strike.
“Killing of journalists is a crime and a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law,” said Lebanon’s Information Minister Paul Morcos.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the targeting of journalists and the obstruction of relief efforts constituted “war crimes.”
The death of Khalil, 43, brought the death toll on Wednesday to five people. It was the deadliest day since a 10-day ceasefire was announced on April 16.
Khalil, who was from southern Lebanon, had been covering the area since 2006 for al-Akhbar. Her latest reporting was about Israeli demolitions of Lebanese homes in villages where Israeli troops are now positioned inside Lebanon.
Her death brings to nine the number of journalists killed in Lebanon so far this year