Hundreds of mourners turned out in the pouring rain in Beirut for the funerals of three journalists killed by Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon. Some held aloft posters of the two well-known Lebanese war correspondents, holding cameras and wearing their press body armour.
A number of women were sobbing. “They’re killing the messengers of this war,” one said.Elsy Moufarrej of the Union of Journalists in Lebanon has already described the killings of the journalists as a war crime.Iran war latest: Tehran threatens to set US ground troops on fire
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Mourners at funeral
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Pic: Reuters
“We’ve seen this in Gaza where they tried to undermine Palestinian journalists by linking them to Hamas.”Now they’re trying to do the same to Lebanese journalists by linking them to Hezbollah. Let’s be in no doubt. This is a war crime.”The journalists – Ali Shoaib who worked for the Hezbollah-owned TV channel Al-Manar; Fatima Fatouni, who worked for Al Mayadeen; and her brother Muhammad Fatouni, who was a freelance cameraman – were covering the ongoing invasion of Israeli troops inside south Lebanon.They were travelling together in a vehicle near Jezzine on the highway between Nabatieh and Sidon when an Israeli bomb hit them.
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Pic: Reuters
Witnesses said as colleagues ran to help, a second strike hit. The Lebanese health ministry said an ambulance filled with first responders sent to help was also hit.An Israeli military spokesman admitted they’d targeted the journalists but attempted to justify the killings by claiming one of the senior correspondents – Ali Shoaib – was a member of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force and was passing on information about Israeli troops’ movements inside Lebanon.He provided no evidence for this claim.
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Mourners at the funeral
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists said journalists doing their jobs are protected under the rules of war, as laid out under the Geneva Convention.CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah said: “We have seen a disturbing pattern in this war and in the decades prior of Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence.”Journalists are not legitimate targets, regardless of the outlet they work for.”
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Pic: AP
The journalist killings came as Israeli troops intensified their attacks on Lebanon.Many of these attacks appear to be directed against health facilities and healthcare workers.Read more from Jattvibe:North Korea conducts engine test for missileLarge crowds attend ‘No Kings’ rallies in USA health care centre in the eastern border town of Deir Kifa was struck early on Sunday.No one was injured, but the centre has been put out of action.This was followed by another Israeli attack on an ambulance which had just picked up a casualty.
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One paramedic and the patient who’d just been rescued were killed. More than fifty medics have been killed in less than a month.The Israeli military once again insisted on Sunday that Hezbollah is “using ambulances extensively for military purposes” and continued, “if this practice doesn’t stop Israel will act in accordance with international law against military activity”.But the Lebanese health ministry has angrily denounced these claims saying there’s no evidence any ambulances are being used for any activity apart from rescuing humanitarian work.The health ministry is compiling a list of Israeli attacks against health facilities and first responders to present to the UN.
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It maintains the Israeli attacks follow a pattern of repetitively targeting medics and hospitals.”These are war crimes,” the health minister Dr Rakan Nassereddine told Jattvibe.Lebanon is embroiled in a huge humanitarian crisis caused by the war, with more than a million displaced.There are daily casualties, with more than fifty killed in the last 24 hours, although the ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
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Pic: AP
The Hezbollah militant group continues to fire volleys of rockets into northern Israel.There has been hand-to-hand fighting between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in some of the southern border villages and communities, but it’s difficult to ascertain how much control the Israeli military has of these areas or how much ground they have taken.There have been sightings of Israeli troops in a number of communities several kilometres inside Lebanese territory and the Israeli Army Chief has been filmed by the military addressing troops on the Lebanese side without any details about exactly where this position was.
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‘Where can I go?’: Living in Lebanon’s war zone
Israeli ministers have made it clear their plan is to seize a vast expanse of Lebanon’s south in order to create what it calls a ‘security buffer zone’.The government has signalled it intends to occupy this territory right up to the Litani River and potentially beyond (an area which takes up about 10% of Lebanese land) until the Israeli military deems it to be safe from the threat of Hezbollah.
