HRW raises concerns about accountability and complicity following an Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists with US-made munitions.
This statement was originally published on hrw.org on 25 November 2024.
Three killed, four injured in apparent war crime
An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on October 25, 2024, that killed three journalists and injured four others was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit. The US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military’s repeated, unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes.
“Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel,” said Richard Weir, senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media.”
The attack took place in the early morning at the Hasbaya Village Club Resort in Hasbaya, a town in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists had been staying for over three weeks. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack. Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building. After initially stating that its forces struck a building where “terrorists were operating,” the Israeli military said hours later that “the incident is under review.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed eight people who were staying at or near the resort, including three injured journalists and the resort’s owner. Human Rights Watch also visited the site on November 1 and verified 6 videos and 22 photos of the attack and its aftermath, plus satellite images. There has been no response to letters sent to the Israeli military on November 14 with findings and questions and to the Lebanese military on November 5 with questions.
The attack on the building in which the journalists were staying took place just after 3 a.m., based on interviews and CCTV footage with the same time code. Most of the journalists were sleeping. Zakaria Fadel, 25, an assistant cameraman for Lebanon-based ISOL for Broadcast, a Lebanese satellite and broadcast services provider, said he was brushing his teeth when the blast threw him into the air.
A munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor. The blast killed Ghassan Najjar, a journalist and cameraman, and Mohammad Reda, a satellite broadcast engineer, both from Al Mayadeen TV, and Wissam Kassem, a cameraman from the Hezbollah-owned outlet Al Manar TV. Al Mayadeen is a Lebanon-based pan-Arab television station politically allied with Hezbollah and the Syrian government.
Human Rights Watch verified videos taken minutes after the attack which show the targeted building completely destroyed and nearby buildings damaged. The strike collapsed a wall in the adjacent building, seriously injuring Hassan Hoteit, 48, a cameraman for ISOL for Broadcast, and substantially damaged the wall of a small building about 10 meters away, injuring other journalists, including Ali Mortada, 46, a camera operator for Al Jazeera.
Mortada said he woke to the blast and pieces of concrete falling on him, injuring his face and his right arm. When the debris stopped falling, he went to see if his colleagues were okay. He and others found Hoteit injured, and the building struck destroyed. Mortada said he saw the bodies of Kassem and Najjar nearby. They found Reda’s remains further away.
Soon after, the resort’s concierge approached them, saying he had found two human legs in one bedroom. Ehab el-Okdy, a reporter for Al Jazeera who was staying at the resort, said that he also saw the bodies and body parts of the dead reporters. “We saw the bodies,” he said. “We saw Mohammad Reda was shattered all over the place.”
Anoir Ghaida, the resort’s owner, said the journalists had arrived on October 1, following an evacuation order from the Israeli military for an area south of Hasbaya. The journalists had been reporting from Ibl al-Saqi, an area included in the evacuation order.
The journalists said that from October 1 until the day of the attack, they made routine and repeated trips, reporting from the Hasbaya area, frequently doing live television reports from a hilltop that overlooked large parts of southern Lebanon. The journalists and Ghaida said they would leave the resort in the morning and return in the evening, about the same time each day. Most of the vehicles at the resort were marked “Press” or “TV.”
The journalists and Ghaida said they constantly heard the buzzing of aerial drones in the area, indicating it was most likely under Israeli surveillance. Prior to October 25, there had been no attacks on Hasbaya town.
Since the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began on October 8, 2023, the Israeli military has attacked and killed journalists and targeted Al Mayadeen TV. On October 23, Israeli forces attacked and destroyed an office used by Al Mayadeen in Beirut. Al Mayadeen had evacuated their staff from the building.
Israeli strikes killed at least six Lebanese journalists between October 8, 2023, and October 29, 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Human Rights Watch found that the October 13, 2023 attack, which killed the Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six other journalists, was an apparent war crime. On November 21, 2023, an Israeli strike killed two Lebanese journalists reporting for Al Mayadeen TV, Rabih al-Maamari and Farah Omar, and their driver, Hussein Akil, in Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon.
Human Rights Watch verified a photo and video from Najjar’s funeral that showed his casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a southern Beirut cemetery where Hezbollah fighters are buried, near the grave of al-Maamari. A Hezbollah spokesperson told Human Rights Watch on November 14 that Najjar had asked to be buried near his friend and colleague al-Maamari, but that Najjar “was just a civilian” and “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
Human Rights Watch found remnants at the attack site and reviewed photographs of remnants collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing. Human Rights Watch identified one remnant as part of the guidance kit’s actuation system that moves the fins. It bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions, including the JDAM. The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters.
Human Rights Watch wrote to Boeing and to Woodard on November 14, but did not receive responses. Companies have responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, and related guidance to stop, prevent, mitigate, or remediate actual and potential violations of international humanitarian law that they cause, contribute to, or are linked with.
Given Israel’s record of widespread laws of war violations and lack of accountability, companies should end arms sales, recall already sold weapons wherever possible, and stop all support services for already sold weapons.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented the Israeli military’s unlawful use of US-equipped weapons in a strike in March that killed seven aid workers in southern Lebanon.
International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, prohibits attacks against civilians and civilian objects. Journalists are considered civilians and are immune from attack so long as they are not directly participating in hostilities. Journalists cannot be attacked for their work as journalists, even if the opposing party considers the media biased or being used for propaganda. When carrying out any attack, warring parties must take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm and damage to civilian objects. This includes taking all necessary actions to verify that targets are military objectives.
Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent – that is, intentionally or recklessly – may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.
Lebanon should urgently accept the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction to give the court’s prosecutor a mandate to investigate serious international crimes committed on the country’s territory.
Israel’s key allies – the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel, given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses. US policy prohibits arms transfers to states “more likely than not” to use them in violations of international law.
“As evidence mounts of Israel’s unlawful use of US weapons, including in apparent war crimes, US officials need to decide whether they will uphold US and international law by halting arms sales to Israel or risk being found legally complicit in serious violations,” Weir said.
