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New Delhi: Israel killed three journalists who were covering the country’s invasion of Lebanon with an airstrike on the southern part of the country, on March 28.

The Hezbollah-owned al-Manar TV has said that its longtime correspondent Ali Shoeib was killed. Israel’s military said it had indeed targeted Shoeib, and has claimed that he was a “Hezbollah intelligence operative” without evidence or elaboration.

A well-known Lebanese war correspondent, Shoeib had covered southern Lebanon for al-Manar TV for nearly three decades. Al-Manar TV described its correspondent as “distinguished by his professional and credible reporting of events.”

Associated Press has reported that the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV reporter Fatima Ftouni was killed in the same airstrike in the southern district of Jezzine along with her brother Mohammed Ftouni, a video journalist. She had just been on air with a live report before the strike. Ftouni’s social media broadcasts have offered a view of Israel’s advance into Lebanon for many around the world.

The three journalists were struck as they were driving far from the frontlines, The Guardian has reported. Local television showed at least four missiles were shot at the car and footage appeared to show a missile being fired between the journalists’ car and bystanders as the latter tried to approach and help, the report said.

Top officials in Lebanon condemned the strike, with President Joseph Aoun calling it a “flagrant crime that violates all laws and agreements that protect journalists.”

The Israeli military did not mention the two others who died in its statement.

Israel has in the past targeted Palestinian journalists in the course of its genocide on Gaza, accusing them often of being Hamas militants posing as reporters without evidence.

Israel’s air force has struck what it claims are “Hezbollah’s civilian targets” – including the headquarters of Al-Manar TV and the group’s Al-Nour radio station since its strikes on Lebanon began on March 2.

Saturday’s strike came days after an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut killed Mohammed Sherri, the head of political programs at Al-Manar TV, along with his wife.

The Health Ministry in Beirut said 47 people had been killed and 112 wounded over the past 24 hours. It said 1,189 have been killed since March 2.

The Committee to Protect Journalists’s special report indicated that more journalists and media workers died in 2025 than in any year since it began collecting data more than three decades ago. Of the 129 journalists who died, 86 died by Israeli fire.

© The Wire