An Israeli strike killed three journalists on Saturday in south Lebanon, with authorities denouncing the attack as a “war crime”.

Lebanese television news channel Al Manar said its reporter Ali Shoaib and reporter Fatima Ftouni, from Lebanese pan-Arab broadcaster Al Mayadeen, were killed when their vehicle was hit.

Lebanon’s information minister, Paul Morcis, later said Ftouni’s brother, Mohammed, a cameraman, had also been killed.

Al Mayadeen said that the Israeli airstrike “directly struck a vehicle clearly marked as a press car in which she and fellow journalists were travelling”. It added that Shoaib and Ftouni’s brother were also in the vehicle.

“According to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent Jamal Ghourabi, Israel targeted Fatima’s vehicle with four precision missiles. After that, when ambulances arrived on the scene, paramedics were then targeted, leading to the martyrdom of one paramedic, reflecting an obvious attempt to assassinate press crews and even paramedics attempting to reach them,” the report said.

Al Mayadeen also shared a video of when the strike hit the press team and the remains of the charred car, with multiple people present several metres away on the road.

It added that Ftouni and her brother were not the first to be killed in the US-Israeli war on Iran. It said that earlier this month, her uncle and his family were killed in an Israeli strike, a development that she had reported on live television.

Shoeib was one of Al Manar’s most prominent war correspondents, having covered Israeli attacks on Lebanon for decades.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the Israeli strike, saying it violated norms.

“Once again, the Israeli aggression violates the most basic rules of international law, international humanitarian law and the laws of war, by targeting journalists, who are ultimately civilians performing a professional duty,” Aoun said in a statement released by the presidency.

“This is a blatant crime that violates all the norms and treaties under which journalists enjoy international protection in wars.”

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the targeting of journalists was “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.

Information Minister Paul Morcos deemed the actions to be “classified as war crimes”.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military admitted to killing Shoaib, alleging he was part of an intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force. It also shared purported footage showing the targeted strike.

The military alleged Shoaib of “operating systematically to expose the locations of IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon and along the border”.

It further claimed that Shoaib “acted to incite against IDF forces and the citizens of the State of Israel while using it as a channel for distributing Hezbollah propaganda materials”.

Israel’s assault on journalists

Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the record 129 journalists and media workers killed across the world in 2025, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

In its annual report, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the total number of journalists killed reached 67 globally in 2025, slightly up from the 66 killed in 2024.

Several journalists have been killed in southern Lebanon since the start of the previous round of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023.

A strike on central Beirut earlier this month killed Mohammad Sherri, Al Manar’s political programmes director.

In October 2024, three journalists — including a cameraman for Al Manar and a cameraman and broadcast engineer for Al Mayadeen — were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the place where they were sleeping in southern Lebanon.

Al Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar, cameraman Rabih Maamari and fixer Hussein Aqil were killed while on assignment in the south in November 2023.

In October 2023, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six others wounded, including AFP journalists Dylan Collins and Christina Assi while covering the conflict near the Israeli border.

An independent AFP investigation concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area inside Israel.

The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including those by Reuters, CPJ, RSF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.