Human Rights Groups Seek War Crime Probe of Israeli Strike

A human rights investigation released on Thursday, August 6, 2026, concludes that an Israeli military strike that killed Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil and severely wounded her colleague Zeinab Faraj should be investigated as a war crime. The incident occurred on April 22 in the southern Lebanese village of al-Tiri.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published separate but consistent reports detailing a series of strikes over several hours that killed Khalil, a 42-year-old correspondent for the newspaper Al-Akhbar, and left Faraj, a 21-year-old freelance camerawoman, with serious injuries. The organizations stated that Israeli forces knew, or should have known, that the two women were civilians and journalists, and that the attack therefore violated international humanitarian law.

According to the investigations, which drew on eyewitness accounts, phone logs, audiovisual evidence, and satellite imagery, the events began in the afternoon when an Israeli strike hit a car ahead of the journalists, killing two Lebanese municipal officials. Khalil reportedly called emergency services at 2:36 p.m. to report that initial strike. For nearly two hours afterward, Israeli...