According to Lebanese state news, three employees were killed in an Israeli attack on a journalists' compound

BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli airstrike Journalists killed three media workers at an apartment complex in southeastern Lebanon early Friday, their channels and the Lebanese state news agency said.

Local news channel Al Jadeed broadcast footage from the scene – a collection of chalets rented by various media outlets – showing collapsed buildings and cars marked “PRESS” covered in dust and debris. The Israeli army issued no warning before the attack.

Beirut-based pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Mayadeen said two of its employees – cameraman Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida – were among the journalists killed early Friday. Lebanese Hezbollah group's Al-Manar TV said its cameraman Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region.

Al-Mayadeen director Ghassan bin Jiddo claimed that the Israeli attack on a complex housing journalists was deliberate and targeted those reporting elements of its military offensive. He promised that the Beirut-based broadcaster would continue its work.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while reporting on Israel's “crimes,” pointing out that they were among a large group of media representatives.

“This is an assassination attempt, after surveillance and prosecution, with premeditation and planning, as 18 journalists were present on site, representing seven media institutions,” he wrote in a post on X.

The Israeli military did not initially comment on the attack.

Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar's prominent correspondent in southern Lebanon, was seen in a video filming himself with a cellphone and saying that the cameraman who had worked with him for months was killed. Shoeib said the Israeli military was aware that journalists from various media organizations were being housed in the attacked area.

“We covered the news and showed the suffering of the victims, and now we are the news and the victims of Israeli crimes,” Shoeib added in the video broadcast on Al-Manar TV.

The Hasbaya region has been largely spared from the violence along the border and many of the journalists now there have relocated from the nearby town of Marjayoun, which has faced sporadic strikes in recent weeks. According to Lebanon's Ministry of Health, a strike broke out at an Al-Mayadeen office on the outskirts of Beirut's southern suburbs earlier this week.

Several journalists have been killed since gunfire began along the Lebanese-Israeli border in early October last year.

In November 2023, Two Al-Mayadeen TV journalists were killed in a drone attack. A month earlier there was an Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and other injured journalists from the French international news agency Agence France-Presse and the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera TV.

The killing of journalists sparked international outcry from press associations and UN experts, although Israel said it was not specifically targeting them.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it had provisionally counted 128 journalists killed in Gaza since the war began.

Israel has accused journalists working for Al Jazeera claimed to be members of militant groups, citing documents allegedly found in Gaza. The network has dismissed the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists also dismissed them, saying that “Israel has repeatedly made similar unsubstantiated claims without providing credible evidence.”

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping another 250. About 100 hostages remain in the Gaza Strip, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory offensive. Gaza's health ministry did not say how many were combatants, but said more than half of those killed were women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants without providing evidence.

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

Lebanese health authorities reported another day of intense airstrikes and shelling on Thursday, killing 19 people in 24 hours and bringing Lebanon's total death toll since October 2023 to 2,593.