Israeli airstrike on journalist compound kills three, Lebanese state media says

An Israeli airstrike on a journalist compound has left three television news staffers dead, Lebanese state media has reported.

The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers were among the journalists killed early on Friday.

Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region, which has been spared much of the fighting along the border so far.

Local news station Al Jadeed aired footage from the scene — a collection of chalets that had been rented by various media outlets — showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “press” covered in dust and rubble.

The Israeli army did not issue a warning before the strike.

Earlier in the week, a strike hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Several journalists have been killed since a near-daily exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border on October 8 2023.

A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.

Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250.

Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

The Israeli campaign has since expanded to Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion on October 1, after trading fire with the Hezbollah militant group for much of the past year.

Lebanese health officials reported another day of intense airstrikes and shelling Thursday, which they said killed 19 people over 24 hours and raised the overall Lebanese death toll to 2,593 since October 2023.