New York, August 6, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists is renewing its demands for immediate accountability for the killing of Lebanese journalist
Amal Khalil
. This follows an Amnesty International
investigation
concluding that the Israeli strike that killed her should be investigated as a war crime. Khalil was murdered in southern Lebanon on April 22, 2026, — yet total impunity remains.
Fifteen
other journalists have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since October 2023.
Amnesty found reasonable grounds to believe that
the strike that killed Khalil
and seriously wounded camerawoman
Zeinab Faraj
was a direct attack on civilians, and should be investigated as a war crime. Drawing on eyewitness testimony, audiovisual evidence, coordination records, satellite imagery, and weapons analysis, the investigation concludes that following Israel’s initial strike on its intended targets, Khalil and Faraj sought shelter while Israeli surveillance drones hovered overhead for nearly two hours. During that time, Israeli forces allegedly struck the journalists’ parked vehicle before carrying out a third strike that destroyed the building where the two women had taken refuge, killing Khalil and severely injuring Faraj.
According to Amnesty, the prolonged drone surveillance meant Israeli forces knew, or should have known, that the two individuals they said they were targeting had already been killed and that the remaining people at the scene were two unarmed civilian women; journalists are protected civilians under international humanitarian law (IHL). Amnesty further found that being inside an Israeli-designated “Forward Defense” zone did not strip them of civilian protections; as such, failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians is a war crime.
These findings are consistent with CPJ’s documentation of the
killing of Lebanese journalists
by Israeli armed forces since October 2023, a disturbing pattern of attacks that CPJ and human rights
