BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeastern Lebanon early Friday, a rare blow to an area that had so far been spared hostilities from the rest of the region.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks against journalists covering the war in Gaza and Lebanon in the last year.

The 3am airstrike reduced the site – a series of guesthouses nestled among the trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war – to rubble, with cars marked ‘PRESS’ overturned and covered in dust and debris. The Israeli military issued no warning before the strike and later said it was looking into it.

Those killed were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen pan-Arab television and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group’s Al-Manar TV. It came after a strike earlier in the week that hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. Both outlets are aligned with Hezbollah and its main backer, Iran.

The strike in the Hasbaya region, which has so far been spared the Israeli airstrikes that have hit other parts of southern Lebanon, has drawn widespread condemnation from officials, journalists and media advocacy groups. TV crews arrived in Hasbaya, deeming it safer after Israel ordered an evacuation order for a town further south they were reporting from.

“That’s why we think it’s a direct targeting, aimed at taking journalists out of the south,” said Elsy Moufarrej, coordinator of the Alternative Press Syndicate in Lebanon. “They want to prevent journalists from covering and having a presence in southern Lebanon.”

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while reporting on what he called Israel’s “crimes” and noted that they were among a large group of media members.

“It is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as 18 journalists representing seven media outlets were present at the location,” he wrote in a post on X.

Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English, who was among the journalists at the Hasbaya Village Club guesthouses, said the airstrike took place around 3:30 a.m. without warning.

“These were just journalists sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” he posted on social media, adding that he and his team were not injured.

Hussein Hoteit, a cameraman for Egypt’s Al-Qahira television, said he was sleeping when he woke up with a “huge weight” as the walls and ceiling collapsed. He was miraculously saved by colleagues who managed to move the debris covering him minutes later.

He said two rockets hit the cottage next door, although he didn’t hear them. He spoke from his hospital bed, where he is being treated for thigh injuries.

Friday’s deaths are the latest in a long time list of journalists who have been killed by Israel in the past year in Gaza and Lebanon.

In a report earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five Palestinians, had been killed in Gaza and Lebanon – more journalists than have died in any year since he started documenting the killings of journalists. in 1992. All but two of the killings were carried out by Israeli forces, it said.

“One year on, Israel’s waging war in Gaza has taken an unprecedented and dire toll on Palestinian journalists and the media landscape in the region,” said the report published on October 4.

The killing journalists sparked international protests from media advocacy groups and United Nations experts, although Israel said it was not deliberately targeting them.

Lebanon’s health minister said that in the past year 11 journalists were killed and eight wounded by Israeli fire in Lebanon.

In November 2023, two journalists from Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike. A month earlier, Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon killed a Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.

This week, Israel blame journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of militant groups, citing documents he allegedly found in Gaza. The network denied the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists also rejected them and said that “Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”

Jad Shahrour, a spokesman for the Samir Kassir Eyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, told The Associated Press on Friday that the bombing of media centers is a deliberate effort to erase the truth.

“It means they are establishing a media blackout,” he said, adding that it is a worrying trend that is now changing from Gaza to Lebanon.

Al-Mayadeen director Ghassan bin Jiddo claimed that Friday’s Israeli strike was deliberate and aimed at those covering elements of its military offensive.

Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s well-known correspondent in southern Lebanon, was seen in a video recording himself with a mobile phone saying that the camera operator who had been working with him for months had been killed. Shoeib said the Israeli military knew that the area that was hit housed journalists from various media organizations.

“We report the news and show the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Shoeib added in the video broadcast by Al-Manar TV.

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Karam reported from London. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed.