Israeli airstrike kills three journalists in Lebanon
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Israeli military said it targeted Ali Shoeib, accusing him of being a Hezbollah intelligence operative without evidence.
- Ali Shoeib, a longtime al‑Manar correspondent, was killed along with Fatima Ftouni (Al‑Mayadeen TV reporter) and her brother Mohammed (video journalist) in the March 28 strike on Jezzine.
- President Joseph Aoun condemned the strike as a “flagrant crime that violates all laws and agreements that protect journalists.”
- Lebanon’s 2026 journalist death toll rose to five after the latest strike.
- Al‑Manar TV said the strike targeted journalists, calling Shoeib a “martyrdom of the icon of resistance media” and noting his three‑decade career covering south Lebanon.
- Mohammed Sherri, head of political programs at Al‑Manar, was killed with his wife in an Israeli airstrike on a central Beirut apartment days earlier, and freelance photojournalist Hussain Hamood was killed in Nabatiyeh on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The deaths raise the 2026 tally of Lebanese journalists killed to five, intensifying concerns over press safety amid the Israel‑Hezbollah war and drawing explicit condemnation from President Joseph Aoun, while the Israeli military’s claim that Shoeib was a Hezbollah intelligence operative remains unsubstantiated.
