In southern Lebanon, several journalists covering the war had retreated to a small town outside Hezbollah strongholds to spend the night. Friday, October 25, an Israeli strike killed three of their colleagues in their sleep. “ The incident is currently being analyzed », Announced the Hebrew State.
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Shortly before dawn in Hasbaya, around 3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. UT), these reporters from Lebanese and Arab channels got up in panic, their accommodation invaded by flames, thick smoke and screams. “ I was woken up by the whistle of the missile », Tells AFP Darine el-Helwe, senior reporter for Emirati television Sky News Arabia.
Killed by the bombing were cameraman Ghassan Najjar and his technician Mohammed Reda, employed by the pro-Iran news channel Al-Mayadeen, based in Beirut. As well as journalist Wissam Qassem, from Hezbollah al-Manar television. In this same hotel complex made up of small bungalows, other journalists affiliated in particular with the Egyptian television Al-Qahira or the media Al-Jazeera spent the night.
“ The bungalow door was wide open, thick smoke was coming in from the garden. I thought of a fire », continues Darine el-Helwe. She calls a colleague also there to find out what is happening. “ He told me he was under the rubble », she adds. Outside, she sees an SNG vehicle (for satellite link) which had been projected, and a bungalow where our colleagues slept completely razed “.
Noting the extent of the destruction, “ each of us made sure we weren’t hurt “, she said on the phone to AFP. Hasbaya, about fifty kilometers south of Beirut, had until then been spared from Israeli strikes, despite the war raging for a month between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israeland the exchanges of fire at the border for more than a year.
The Israeli army carried out a strike against a Hezbollah military structure in Hasbaya in southern Lebanon [et] while the terrorists were inside », Explained the army in a press release. “ Hours after the strike, reports were received that journalists had been hit in the strike. The incident is currently being analyzed », added the army.
“ What have we done? »
The Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced an attack “ deliberate » against sleeping journalists, denouncing like his Minister of Information Ziad Makari a “ war crime “.
“ We slept in our rooms, without our bulletproof vests or our helmets “, says Darine el-Helwe. The journalists present in Hasbaya had settled there at the beginning of October, because it was considered safe. They had just left the neighboring region of Marjayoun, where they had been for almost a year, due to the intensification of strikes.
Since the first exchanges of fire on the border between Israel and Hezbollah in October 2023, “ this is the first time that the locality of Hasbaya has been targeted “, local official Naïm el-Lahham told AFP.
“ The Israeli enemy… is stalking the press again, today in a relatively remote area “, declared Muhammad Farhat, correspondent for the Lebanese channel Al-Jadeed, on his television screen. His face covered in a layer of grayish dust, he shows off his bed buried under the rubble of his bungalow. “ We slept in our bungalow. As you can see, this is my room and my bed », he shows.
For her part, Fatima Ftouni, correspondent for Al-Mayade, who emerged unscathed, carried out her live broadcast by showing off her partially torn bulletproof vest with the inscription “Press”, in front of a destroyed car.
“ This is what remains of my vest, my helmet and the weapon we carry “, she said, showing her microphone. “II don’t know why we wear these jackets and helmets if the occupation pays no attention to them “, she said in reference to Israel. “ What have we done? We reported the crimes of the occupation in southern Lebanon? »
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