Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil killed in Israeli strike on a house where she took cover, paper says

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BEIRUT (AP) — A Lebanese journalist was killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a house in southern Lebanon where she had taken cover while reporting on the Israel-Hezbollah war. Her body was only retrieved from the rubble hours later, rescue workers said.

The daily Al-Akhbar newspaper says its reporter Amal Khalil was killed in the southern village of al-Tiri.

Khalil had been covering the conflict in Lebanon between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group that resumed in early March, in the shadow of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. She took cover in the house in al-Tiri after an earlier Israeli airstrike hit near the car she was traveling in with another colleague.

The Lebanese health ministry said the first strike killed two people. A second Israeli strike then hit the house in al-Tiri where Khalil and her colleague Zeinab Faraj had taken cover.

At first, rescue workers were able to get to Faraj, who was seriously wounded, and retrieve the bodies of two killed in the first airstrike. But they were fired on by Israeli forces so they were forced to halt attempts to reach Khalil, the ministry said.

Khalil remained under the rubble for hours before the Lebanese army, civil defense and the Lebanese Red Cross were able to get to the scene hours later. Khalil's body was retrieved shortly before midnight, at least six hours after the strike.

Israel’s military said individuals in the village had violated the ceasefire, endangering its troops. Israel denied that it targets journalists or that it prevented rescue teams from reaching the area. It said the incident was under review.

"Killing of journalists is a crime and a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law,” said Lebanon’s Information Minister Paul Morcos.

Khalil's death comes on the eve of the second round of direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington on extending the ceasefire that went into effect last Friday.

Khalil, who was from southern Lebanon, had been covering the area since 2006 for al-Akhbar. Her latest reporting was about Israeli demolitions of Lebanese homes in villages where Israeli troops are now positioned inside Lebanon.

Her death brings to nine the number of journalists killed in Lebanon so far this year. At least 2,300 people have been killed in Israeli strikes and more than 1 million displaced since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war erupted on March 2.

Earlier on Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders called for international pressure on the Israeli army to allow Khalil's rescue. Committee to Protect Journalists expressed its “outrage” at the apparent targeting of the two journalists and warned the obstruction of rescue efforts “may amount to a war crime.”

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun asked the Lebanese Red Cross to coordinate with the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers “to carry out the rescue operation" as quickly as possible.

In late March, an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon killed three journalists covering the war. Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV said its longtime correspondent Ali Shoeib was killed. Israel’s military said it had targeted Shoeib, accusing him of being a Hezbollah intelligence operative, without providing evidence.

Also killed in the same strike was reporter Fatima Ftouni, who worked for the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV along with her brother Mohammed Ftouni, a video journalist.

Days earlier, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut killed Mohammed Sherri, the head of political programs at Hezbollah’s at Al-Manar TV, along with his wife.

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Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.