Colleagues describe Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil’s final hours during Israeli bombing
As mourners carried the coffin of slain Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil during his funeral on Thursday, they experienced a wave of mixed emotions, one attendee said.
Khalil, who was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, was laid to rest last week in the village of Baysariyeh.
“It was a really sad day, but it was full of pride – and anger,” Roaa Kassem, Khalil’s colleague at the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, told. As It Happened hosted by Nil Köksal.
He says he is sad because Khalil was a good-hearted person, loved by his colleagues and those who shared their stories.
Pride, because Khalil did not back down, even in the face of danger and death threats.
And anger, because Kassem and his colleagues say they believe Israel targeted Khalil on purpose, then prevented first responders from reaching him in time to save his life.
Israel denies targeting the journalist or blocking medical aid, and says the strike is being reviewed.
As It Happened6:47A colleague describes slain Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil as a kind and loving person
Kassem says Khalil and freelance photographer Zeinab Faraj were driving behind another car in the village of al-Tiri, which is 8 kilometers away from the border between Lebanon and Israel, when an Israeli strike hit the car in front of them, killing the two occupants inside, whom Kassem described as Faraj’s relative and the mayor of a nearby village.
It was just five days after the implementation of the fragile agreement between Israel and Lebanon.
The two reporters approached, got out of the car and hid on the side of the road. The plane remained high in the sky.
Kassem says that’s when he and his colleagues contacted Khalil via a group chat at around 2:47 pm local time. Khalil assured them that he was safe, and their car was not hit.
“We thought it was over,” Kassem said.
Faraj spoke to The Associated Press on Friday from his hospital bed in Beirut, where he was recovering from his injuries.
He said he and Khalil sat on the side of the road for about an hour, until the second strike hit Khalil’s car next to them. They then took shelter in a nearby shop after knocking down the metal lid.
“Amal was crawling, injured – her nose and head and shoulder and leg,” Faraj said, speaking with difficulty as her face was swollen and bruised.
After a while, Faraj says, he started to move away, and he remembers hearing Khalil say to him: “Zeinab, don’t leave me alone.”
He says he is still asleep when he hears the sound of an arrow falling. The third strike hit the building where the two journalists were sheltering at around 4:27 pm
Faraj was ushered out of the shop, but Khalil was trapped inside.
While all of this was happening, Kassem says Lebanon Civil Defense first responders were communicating with the Israeli military, trying to find a safe way to rescue the journalists.
Officials say the Lebanese Red Cross, the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL have all been sending multiple messages trying to coordinate the rescue operation.
The rescue team was able to pull Faraj out of the wreckage and removed the bodies of the two people who died in the first car strike.
But Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said in a statement that Israeli soldiers opened fire on a Red Cross ambulance that came to rescue Khalil, forcing it to turn back.
When they got permission to return to Khalil, Kassem says it was after 10 pm and Khalil was already dead. They pulled his body out of the rubble.
Faraj said he believed “if they had gotten to her sooner, Amal would be here today.”
Alleged war crimes
The Prime Minister of Lebanon Nawaf Salam He accused Israel of war crimes about Wednesday’s strikes.
“The targeting of media workers in the south while doing their professional work is no longer an isolated incident, but it has become an established practice that we criticize and reject, as do all international laws and conventions,” he wrote on the X website.
Although the killings are increasing tensions in the region, The ceasefire was extended on Friday three weeks more.
Lebanese officials say Israel deliberately targeted journalist Amal Khalil in a deadly strike, and blocked ambulances from helping her. Israel says it fired on vehicles that crossed its front line inside Lebanon. Talks between Lebanon and Israel will be held in Washington on Thursday.
Israel’s military said the Israeli air force hit a vehicle and a building after two vehicles in southern Lebanon identified as coming from a Hezbollah military base crossed the Forward Defense Line – also known as the yellow line – which it says is an immediate danger.
The army said it had received reports that two journalists were injured, but said it was not preventing the rescue team from reaching the area. The army does not deliberately target journalists or medical teams, it said.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Information says nine journalists and 100 health workers are among the nearly 2,500 people who have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2.
The Committee to Protect Journalists weighs in 264 journalists and media workers are among the tens of thousands of people killed in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel and Iran since Oct. 7. 2023. The World Health Organization estimates there were 735 Israeli attacks on health facilities in Gaza between Oct. 7, 2023, and June 11, 2025.
Khalil was described as brave and kind
Kassem says he knows nothing about the alleged Hezbollah location Israel is talking about.
“We don’t even know where the boundaries of this yellow line are,” he said. “I don’t think that if someone crosses the line, the first thing to do is bomb them.”
Khalil had publicly stated that he had received threatening messages from an Israeli number while talking about the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kassem says the paper has also received threats on his behalf.
“We, like his colleagues, like the newspaper, his friends, his family, everyone asked Amal to maybe stop for a while, or to be more careful, or to report to the villages … that are not directly on the border,” he said.
“But Amal didn’t want that. She wanted to convey the image and the image completely as we leave those places.”
Kassem described his colleague as a kind person, who always smiled, and who loved his job very much.
He often helped journalists visiting southern Lebanon, Kassem said, and often had journalists in the region at his home for dinner.
On Thursday, he says, all his colleagues gathered there for the last time.
“Unfortunately, it was his funeral,” said Kassem. “He wasn’t there with us.”
