Four Lebanese civilians, including two journalists covering the violence, were killed on Tuesday in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, Lebanese authorities said.
• Also read: Hezbollah fires drones, grenades and rockets at the Israeli army
Since the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas began on October 7, there have been daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the pro-Iranian Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which is said to be intervening in support of Hamas. In recent days, Hezbollah has increased its attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.
According to the National News Agency (ANI), the two journalists from the pro-Iran Lebanese channel Al Mayadeen, along with a civilian who accompanied them, were killed in an “enemy bombardment” in the Tayr Harfa border sector.
According to ANI, an Israeli attack on the village of Kfar Kila also killed an octogenarian and injured her granddaughter. A source at Marjayoun Hospital in southern Lebanon told AFP that the seven-year-old granddaughter was in serious condition.
Al Mayadeen TV announced that its correspondent Farah Omar and her cameraman Rabih Maamari had been killed “by an Israeli attack.”
Al Mayadeen’s team was “deliberately targeted, it was not a coincidence,” the channel’s CEO Ghassan Ben Jeddo said in a televised statement. He added that the civilian killed accompanying the journalists was a “contributor” to the channel, without giving further details.
Asked by AFP about the attack, the Israeli army said it was “checking the details”.
Mr. Ben Jeddo stressed that the attack came after the Israeli government’s decision to block the websites of Al Mayadeen, which Israel said had become the “spokesman for Hezbollah.”
“Silence the media”
In a statement, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati “strongly condemned” the Israeli attack on the journalists.
“This aggression proves once again that Israel’s crimes know no limits,” he added, accusing Israel of wanting to “silence the media that denounces its crimes and aggression.”
On October 13, a Lebanese journalist from Portal, Issam Abdallah, was killed in a similar bomb attack that injured six other journalists – two from AFP, two from Portal and two from Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
A month later, journalists were again targeted and an Al Jazeera cameraman was slightly injured by Israeli fire as he and other correspondents covered the bombings in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah assured that the new “aggression” against journalists on its part “will not go unanswered.”
On Monday he announced that he had carried out a series of attacks with drones, rockets and grenades against the Israeli army in northern Israel.
American envoy
According to an AFP count, cross-border violence in Lebanon has claimed at least 95 lives since October 7, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also at least 14 civilians.
According to Israel, nine people were killed on the Israeli side, including six soldiers.
Fears are high that violence on that front could worsen, and an American envoy, Amos Hochstein, traveled to Israel on Monday to express his country’s concerns on the issue, Washington said.
“We don’t want this war to expand,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
According to him, the opening of a second front in northern Israel, which borders southern Lebanon, is “in no one’s interest,” and Mr. Hochstein is trying to “prevent this scenario.”
The war between Israel and Hamas was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, the vast majority civilians, according to authorities.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas and relentlessly shelled the Gaza Strip, killing more than 13,300 people, including more than 5,600 children, according to the Hamas government.