Lebanon 's announcement on October 9, 2025, that it has tasked the Justice Ministry with assessing the legal measures that may be taken following Israeli attacks on journalists during the last war offers a fresh opportunity to achieve justice for the victims, Human Rights Watch said today.
Two years since Israel's apparently deliberate attack on journalists in south Lebanon, which killed a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah, victims of war crimes in Lebanon remain without effective access to accountability and justice, Human Rights Watch said today. Lebanon's new government, appointed in February 2025, has yet to take meaningful steps to advance accountability.
"Israel's apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdullah should have served as a crystal clear message for Lebanon's government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes," said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Since Issam's killing, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes."
Since then, Israeli forces have, according to Reporters Without Borders, killed over 200 journalists in Gaza, many deliberately. Recently, Israeli forces also carried out a strike on a media center in Sanaa and killed 31 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch has documented a series of unlawful attacks and apparent war crimes committed by the Israeli military during hostilities, including additional apparently deliberate attacks on journalists, as well as peacekeepers, medics, and civilian objects. Israel's deliberate demolition of civilian homes, destruction of vast swaths of critical civilian infrastructure and public services, and its use of explosive weapons in populated areas have made it impossible for many residents to return to their villages and houses.
Human Rights Watch has also documented the Israeli military's widespread use of white phosphorus, including unlawfully over populated residential areas, its apparent deliberate destruction and pillaging of schools, and unlawful use of booby trapped devices. Human Rights Watch also found that Hezbollah failed to take adequate precautions to protect civilians in its attacks on northern Israel between September and November 2024, launching explosive weapons in populated areas and failing to effectively warn civilians of attacks.
Human Rights Watch found that the Israeli strikes that killed Abdallah and injured six other journalists from Al-Jazeera, Reuters, and AFP were apparently a deliberate attack on civilians and therefore a war crime. An investigation by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) found that an Israeli tank fired two 120 mm rounds at a group of "clearly identifiable journalists," including Abdallah, in violation of international law. The investigators said that UNIFIL personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the Israeli Merkava tank opened fire.
