Original article by Stephen Prager republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

The Committee to Protect Journalists regional director called the killing part of “a disturbing pattern” of “Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence.”

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson has admitted that the military posted a “photoshopped” image of a Lebanese journalist killed in an airstrike in order to portray him as a Hezbollah operative.

On Saturday, three journalists—Ali Shuaib, a veteran correspondent for Al-Manar TV; Fatima Ftouni of the Al Mayadeen channel; and her brother, cameraman Mohammad Ftouni—were killed when four precision missiles hit their car on the Jezzine Road in Southern Lebanon. Several other reporters were injured in the attack.

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According to Al Jazeera, the vehicle was clearly marked “press.”

In the following hours, the IDF’s official social media account posted that it had “ELIMINATED” Shuaib in the attack.

“For years, Ali Hassan Shuaib operated as a Hezbollah Radwan Force terrorist under the guise of a journalist,” the post read. “Turns out the ‘press vest’ was just a cover for terror.”

The post, which has more than 2.1 million views on X as of Monday, featured a split image showing Shuaib in a press outfit on one side and in a Hezbollah military uniform on the other.

But according to Fox News’ chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yingst, the network later asked the IDF about the photo’s source. They were told: “Unfortunately, there isn’t really a picture of it. It was photoshopped.”

On Monday, Israel issued another statement claiming that Mohammad Ftouni was “an additional terrorist in Hezbollah’s military wing, who also operated under the guise of a journalist.”

But when asked for evidence to confirm this by the Agence France-Presse, it provided none, with a spokesperson saying, “What we have is what we can state.”

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) regional director Sara Qudah called the killings part of “a disturbing pattern in this war and in the decades prior [of] Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence.”

Israel accused Shuaib of “consistently working to expose the locations of IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon and along the border, and maintain[ing] continuous contact with other terrorists in the Radwan Force unit in particular, and within the terror organization in general.”

American journalist Ryan Grim, the co-founder of Drop Site News, said: “The Israeli statement itself says that his ‘crime’ was reporting on troop locations and communicating with sources in Hezbollah. That is called war reporting.”

According to a report last month by CPJ, a record 129 journalists were killed in 2025, and Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the worldwide total.

The vast majority of those killed have been Palestinian journalists in Gaza—at least 261 of whom have been killed since October 7, 2023—according to a running tally by the International Federation of Journalists. At least 11 journalists have also been killed in Lebanon since 2023.

In addition to Shuaib and the Ftounis, two others have been killed since Israel’s latest onslaught in Lebanon after Hezbollah retaliated against US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Israeli attacks have also resulted in the deaths of photojournalist Hussain Hamood and journalist Mohammed Sherri this month.

An investigation last year by +972 and the Israeli outlet Local Call revealed that the IDF has an informal unit known as the “Legitimization Cell,” which seeks to find tenuous links between journalists and militant groups to justify assassinating them.

As one source explained, the cell’s members seek out reporters they believe are “smearing [Israel’s] name in front of the world” by reporting evidence of the country’s conduct.

While Al-Manar is the official news outlet for Hezbollah and Al Mayadeen is considered to be closely tied with the militia, Qudah noted that under international law, “journalists are not legitimate targets, regardless of the outlet they work for.”

In less than a month, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,100 people, including at least 121 children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Many pieces of civilian infrastructure—including hospitals, schools, and residential buildings—have been attacked, and Israel has issued forced evacuation orders that have led more than 1 million people to be displaced from their homes.

On the same day that the three journalists were attacked, the World Health Organization reported that nine paramedics were killed across southern Lebanon in a series of attacks on healthcare infrastructure.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that by attacking civilian workers carrying out their professional duties, Israel has violated “the most basic rules of international law.”

He called it “a blatant crime that violates all norms and treaties under which journalists are granted international protection during armed conflicts.”

Original article by Stephen Prager republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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