03/28/2026
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Israel just killed Al-Manar TV correspondent, journalist Ali Shoeib, Al-Mayadeen TV correspondent, journalist Fatima Ftouni, and her brother, photojournalist Mohammad Ftouni, while they were carrying out their duties, in a strike that targeted the car they were traveling in on the Jezzine–Kfarhouna road in southern Lebanon.
Following the deadly attack, the Israeli army openly admitted that it deliberately targeted the Lebanese journalists’ vehicle, boasting of its crime and “celebrating its success.” As is usual, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee alleged ties to Hezbollah in an attempt to justify killing three journalists, claiming: “The IDF eliminated the individual Ali Shoeib, who was a terrorist in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and had been acting for years under the guise of a journalist.”
For his part, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned Israel’s targeting of the three journalists, stating: “Once again, Israeli aggression violates the most basic rules of international law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of war by targeting journalists, who are ultimately civilians carrying out their professional duty.”
Aoun stressed that it is “a blatant crime that violates all norms and treaties under which journalists are granted international protection in times of war,” calling on “all international bodies to take action to stop what is happening on our land.”
At the start of the expanded war earlier this month, Ftouni had mourned, live on air, seven members of her family who were massacred by in an Israeli strike that hit their home in the southern town of Toul. She was known for her live coverage from the “frontlines” and clashes in border villages such as Khiyam and Taybeh.
Al-Manar TV also mourned the loss of “an icon of resistance media,” Ali Shoeib, who “worked as a correspondent for the channel in southern Lebanon, covering numerous events from before the 2000 liberation from Israeli occupation, through the July War of 2006 and the 2024 war, up to the current Israeli war on Lebanon.”
Just days earlier, Israel killed veteran TV anchor, media figure, and Al-Manar’s political programs director, Mohammad Sherri, along with his wife, in a strike that targeted his home in Beirut while he was recovering from surgery.