Israel killed three Lebanese journalists on purpose, rights group says Freedom of the Press

Human Rights Watch says Israel’s attack on journalists in October was carried out using an American-made bomb.

An Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists and wounded others in Lebanon in October may have been a deliberate attack on civilians and a clear war crime, Human Rights Watch said.

An Israeli attack on October 25 killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and engineer Mohammad Reda, who worked for Al Mayadeen, and Al-Manar TV camera operator Wissam Qassim while they were sleeping in guest houses in Hasbaiyya in southeastern Lebanon.

In a report published on Monday, Human Rights Watch found “no evidence of fighting, soldiers, or fighting in the immediate area during the attack” and noted that “the Israeli army knew or should have known that the journalists were living in the area and in the target building”.

The report also determined that the Israeli military carried out the attack using an air-dropped bomb fitted with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kit.

The rights group says it found the remains at the site and reviewed photos of the pieces collected by the resort’s owner and determined they were compatible with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the American company Boeing.

The JDAM is attached to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target using satellite links, making the weapon accurate within a few meters, the team said.

“Israel’s use of US weapons to illegally attack and kill journalists far from any military targets is a bad sign for the United States and Israel,” said Richard Weir, senior crisis, conflict and weapons researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. .

The rights group also called on the US government to freeze arms exports to Israel because the military has repeatedly carried out “unlawful attacks on civilians, which may involve US officials in war crimes”.

US President Joe Biden’s administration said in May that Israel’s use of US-supplied weapons in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza may have violated international humanitarian law, but the conditions of the war prevented US officials from determining that for sure in a specific attack.

The Israeli military has not commented on the HRW report.

“Past attacks by Israeli forces that killed journalists without any consequences give little hope of accountability for this or future violations of the media,” Weir added.

Journalists have been targeted in Israel and have faced unprecedented dangers while covering Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

In November 2023, two Al Mayadeen TV journalists were killed in a drone attack on their reporting base.

Last month, Israeli gunfire in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from Al Jazeera and the AFP news agency on a mountaintop near the Israeli border.

The killing of journalists has caused international outcry from media organizations and the United Nations.

Israel has repeatedly stated that it does not deliberately target journalists. In many cases, the military also claimed that the journalists killed were fighters or “terrorists”.

But according to independent investigations by rights groups and experts, these claims rarely hold up.