Amal Khalil

Amal Khalil (; 1984 – 22 April 2026) was a Lebanese journalist for Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper. She was killed in Southern Lebanon while covering the 2026 Lebanon war, when a third Israeli strike within about two hours destroyed the building in which she and fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj had taken shelter. Rescuers were unable to reach Khalil for several hours, after a quadcopter reportedly dropped a stun grenade near a Lebanese Red Cross team and gunfire damaged the ambulance.

In August 2026, investigations by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and The Legal Agenda identified Khalil and Faraj as civilians and described the attacks as warranting investigation as possible war crimes.

Early life and career Khalil was from Al-Baisariyah, a coastal village in Sidon District, Lebanon in 1984. That same month, Khalil told Al Jadeed that she received a threatening phone call from an Israeli phone number "warning her to leave the south and threatening to destroy her home and decapitate her". After her death, Israeli commentator Gideon Gal Ben Avraham was identified as the person who made this phone call.

2026 Israeli airstrike and death On 22 April 2026, Khalil and freelance photojournalist Zeinab Faraj travelled to At-Tiri in southern Lebanon to report on the 2026 Lebanon war and verify claims that Israeli forces had withdrawn from the area. They were travelling behind a car carrying Ali Nabil Bazzi, a municipal official from Bint Jbeil, and Mohammed al-Hourani, a friend of Bint Jbeil's mayor. At about 2:30 p.m., an Israeli strike hit the men's car, killing both of them.

Lebanese Red Cross workers entered At-Tiri at about 5:00 p.m. and extracted Faraj, who had sustained serious injuries. According to Faraj, the Lebanese Health Ministry and other sources, a quadcopter then dropped a stun grenade near the rescuers, forcing them to withdraw without reaching Khalil. A report from Tebnin Governmental Hospital stated that she had suffered a head injury causing severe bleeding and had died of cardiac arrest at approximately 7:00 p.m. Human Rights Watch concluded that Khalil was probably still alive when the rescuers were forced to withdraw.

Reactions and investigations On 22 April 2026, as efforts to reach the journalists were underway, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun called on the Lebanese Red Cross to coordinate with the Lebanese Army and the United Nations peacekeeping force to rescue Khalil and Faraj. The Health Ministry of Lebanon also condemned the attack, stating that Khalil's death "adds to the long list of crimes committed by the Israeli enemy against civilians, including journalists and paramedics, demonstrating its blatant disregard for laws and human values." Lebanon's Press Club said that Khalil was killed "while she was carrying out her journalistic work, paying with her life and blood for a cause she believed in."

In August 2026, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and The Legal Agenda published investigations that identified Khalil and Faraj as civilians and said that the circumstances warranted investigations into possible war crimes. Human Rights Watch said that photographs and videos, witness accounts and telephone records showed that the journalists' civilian status should have been apparent to the Israeli military before the later strikes. It added that restrictions on entry to the area did not deprive them of civilian protection. Amnesty International's Heba Morayef said that impunity for previous killings of journalists and other civilians in Lebanon had enabled further unlawful attacks, and called for an arms embargo on Israel.