‘I do not feel safe’: The cost of 3 years of Israeli impunity for journalists in Lebanon

When visual journalist Ahmed Chihadeh came under Israeli drone fire in January 2025 while covering the return of displaced residents to the southern Lebanese town of Houla, he removed his press vest and hid his camera.

“After what happened to my colleagues, and after seeing that there has still been no justice for those who were killed or injured, I do not feel safe,” the Palestinian-Lebanese freelancer told the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Three years after Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six other journalists injured in the first instance CPJ has documented of Israeli forces deliberately targeting journalists following the outbreak of war on October 7, 2023, members of the press in Lebanon say continued attacks, combined with the absence of accountability, have changed how they work.

Journalists who have reported from southern Lebanon told CPJ that areas they once covered have become inaccessible due to Israel’s military presence and the risk of being targeted. They said that identifying themselves as press no longer offers them a sense of protection, while mounting risks have forced them to document events from afar they can no longer witness firsthand.

Chihadeh and fellow photojournalist Hassan Fneich were among a group of civilians about 150 to 200 meters (490 to 650 feet) from Israeli forces when a drone descended and began firing. Fneich, who was standing beside him, was hit in the leg.

“With all the technology and artificial intelligence we have reached, surely whoever is flying in the sky knows they are targeting civilians,” Chihadeh said.

A growing record of attacks

On October 13, 2023, two Israeli tank shells struck the group of seven journalists reporting near Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, killing Abdallah and injuring six others, including Agence France-Presse photojournalist Christina Assi, who suffered life-altering injuries.

At least five independent investigations concluded that the clearly identifiable journalists were deliberately targeted.

The journalists had been reporting from an open hillside, away from the active exchange of fire, when two 120mm tank rounds struck the group 37 seconds apart. Reuters found that heavy machine-gun fire was likely directed at the journalists for nearly two minutes after the strikes. 

In 2026, Israel acknowledged that its forces had fired the rounds but described the attack as a mistake. The acknowledgment confirmed who fired the rounds — but did not answer the question: who was responsible for the decision to fire, and have any consequences followed?

Lawyers representing Abdallah’s family submitted information about his killing to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel in 2024. In 2025, they filed a complaint to two UN Special Repertours on the failure of Israeli and Lebanese authorities to conduct a prompt, independent, effective and transparent investigation. No publicly documented criminal prosecution has followed.

Neither Lebanon nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute, meaning that the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the targeting of civilians or any other war crimes. In 2024, Lebanon approved a special declaration that would have granted the Court jurisdiction to investigate war crimes committed after October 7, 2023. However, a month later the government reversed that decision.

Nizar Saghieh, the executive director of Legal Agenda, a Beirut-based nonprofit research and advocacy organization, told CPJ that Lebanon’s reluctance to refer alleged violations to the ICC reflects both domestic and international pressure. 

The government withdrew its decision in May 2024 “under pressure from both Hezbollah and the US Embassy,” he said, referring to the powerful Lebanese armed group, who could also come under scrutiny by the ICC should it receive jurisdiction. “None of them said that officially.”

In June 2026, the U.S.-brokered Lebanon-Israel Framework bound both parties to cease “all hostile or negative actions in international political or legal forums,” prompting warnings from rights groups that it could obstruct efforts to seek accountability for alleged war crimes.

Meanwhile, as legal avenues narrowed, attacks on journalists continued.

On October 25, 2024, about a year after Abdallah’s killing, an Israeli airstrike hit a resort in Hasbaya housing at least 18 journalists, killing pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen journalists Ghassan Najjar and Mohammed Reda, and Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar journalist Wissam Kassem.

Investigations by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and The Guardian found no military activity at the site, and presented evidence that the journalists may have been deliberately targeted. HRW found that U.S.-made weapons were used in the attack.

Following renewed hostilities in March 2026, Israeli forces killed three journalists — Al-Manar’s Ali Shoaib, Al-Mayadeen’s Fatima Ftouni and freelance photojournalist Mohammed Ftouni — in Jezzine, southern Lebanon.

About a month later, local newspaper Al-Akhbar correspondent Amal Khalil and freelance photojournalist Zeinab Faraj were heading on assignment to document an Israeli incursion in Bint Jbeil when an Israeli airstrike first hit the car in front of them, and then the building where they sought shelter. Israeli forces obstructed medical workers from reaching the site for hours. Khalil was killed and Faraj seriously injured, in an attack CPJ said should be investigated as a war crime.

Civilians as targets

Chihadeh said the change began with basic decisions about where journalists could go.

Areas identified as targets by the Israeli or Lebanese armies became off-limits, even for important stories, he said. While journalists can sometimes access occupied villages as embeds in time-controlled UNIFIL tours, entry is not always granted, two journalists told CPJ. 

The danger has extended beyond locations formally designated as military zones.

“Even in places that are supposed to be safe and protected under international law, the risk is there,” said Chihadeh .

He recalled covering the aftermath of an Israeli strike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, in November 2024 alongside Lebanese Civil Defence and ambulance crews. The first strike had already hit. Chihadeh, a reporter and a producer, ambulance workers, and civil-defence members were attempting to leave when Israeli aircraft returned.

“There were people carrying cameras,” he said. “I had a camera, a reporter was with me, my producer was with me, and there were members of the civil defence and paramedics. The place was targeted while we were trying to leave.”

Two months later in Houla, it went further: when a drone opened fire and wounded Fneich, Chihadeh hid the equipment that identified him as a journalist.

For Chihadeh, he feared the press vest intended to distinguish him as a civilian might put a target on his back.

Distanced from the field

The growing danger has also changed how some Lebanese news organizations gather information.

Enass Sherry, a journalist with Legal Agenda and a member of the administrative body of Union of Journalists in Lebanon, said the organisation had changed its methods as growing impunity, and the heightened targeting of journalists expanded the scope of danger.

“When the risks increased, we started looking for other tools that could achieve our reporting while preserving our safety,” Sherry said.

The organisation introduced open-source investigations and trained staff to read maps, analyse videos and verify information remotely. It documented violations without always sending reporters to the site. It also investigated Khalil’s killing without requiring the team to return to the location, by reconstructing the attack through primary evidence, reporting, and witness testimonies.

“We started to reduce the areas we could reach,” Sherry said. “When the situation allowed it, we went to the field. When there were risks, we replaced that with calls, and information from outside the event.”

This shift has allowed journalists to continue reporting. It has also changed what can be independently observed. The more dangerous the ground becomes, the more journalism depends on information gathered at a distance.

Sherry and Chihadeh both pointed out that the precarious situation escalates when journalists are freelancers, without the institutional protection, equipment or insurance available to staff.

Up until recently, journalists were allowed rare access to Christian villages in the occupied areas through civilian convoys, UN peacekeepers or specific NGOs delivering aid to the isolated towns. The Israeli military often refused to grant access, though.

Nada Atallah and Nada Homsi, journalists for state-linked Emirati outlet The National, said they were, on one occasion, able to access some still-inhabited Israeli-occupied villages through civilian convoys of residents returning to their towns.

“Even when you manage to get there, you only have two hours, and you cannot drive freely, and people are very scared to talk,” Atallah said, adding that the restrictions bar them from reporting on how Israel “has completely erased the south, and potential war crimes.”

To her, Israel’s targeting of journalists since October 13, 2023, was “a clear message to scare us”.

“Only a small percent of what’s happening is even able to get out. So, anything that we know about this so-called security zone now, we know through residents that are too scared to talk over the phone,” Homsi added.

Journalists who requested anonymity out of fear for their safety told CPJ that Israel temporarily banned media embeds to two of the three inhabited occupied villages, supposedly due to reports painting the Israeli military in a negative light.

‘Accountability is protection’

“If Israel had been held accountable the first time it killed a journalist in Lebanon or Gaza, it would not have found it so easy to kill other journalists,” Sherry said. “The killings are documented with enough evidence to open a real judicial case.”

She said accountability was not only about punishment after the fact, but also a preventive measure.

“Accountability is protection,” Sherry told CPJ. “The first basic step to prevent attacks on journalists and guarantee their right to work, and access information has to begin with holding Israel accountable for these crimes.”

For Chihadeh, justice requires identifying the individuals responsible. 

“When Issam Abdallah was killed, there wasn’t a battalion of 500 soldiers, there were two Israeli tanks,” he said. “Why don’t we have a name?”

He said legal measures capable of imposing consequences on those responsible, including restricting their ability to travel internationally, could provide a deterrent against future attacks.

Christina Assi, who survived the October 13 attack and received CPJ’s 2026 International Press Freedom Award, made a similar argument.

“It is not enough to file a case against a country,” Assi told CPJ. “We need to know who did this to us.”

Three years after the attack that killed Abdallah and severely injured Assi, journalists in Lebanon continue to work without that answer — and some no longer trust the protections they once relied upon to do their jobs.

“With Israel’s blatant failure to take accountability, we call on the international community to pressure Israeli officials to complete a probe naming the units and individuals responsible for the deliberate attacks against journalists,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “The failure to hold those responsible to account is just a failure of justice – it puts other journalists at risk by allowing impunity to persist. The suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement is one of the few remaining avenues that could create a meaningful pressure to break this cycle of impunity.”