Lebanon Ceasefire: Two Journalists Trapped After Strike

Zeinab Faraj is back at her desk, but her body still remembers the road. The 21-year-old photojournalist is finishing her degree and preparing for a return to university, yet she walks with a limp and struggles to move one eyebrow. Her hand is visibly injured, and she wakes screaming in the night. These are the physical costs of a strike in mid-April that killed her colleague and left her trapped under debris.

The incident happened on April 22, shortly after Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon. The truce ended a month of heavy airstrikes that had flattened villages in the south. Faraj and Amal Khalil, a 42-year-old newspaper reporter, drove south to document the damage. They had worked together before after Khalil contacted Faraj following a social media post. Faraj, who was freelancing while studying radio and TV, said she expected the trip to be routine. She reported that gunfire and artillery were audible but noted she felt no fear.

Their vehicle was ahead of two men, Ali Nabil Bazzi and Mohammed Hourani, who were also heading to the village of al-Tiri. Faraj did not hear the initial missile. She heard Khalil scream and saw the car ahead catch fire. When they exited the vehicle, Faraj tried to pull Bazzi out, but Khalil kept repeating that the men were gone. Faraj saw their bodies torn apart. Drones then arrived, flying low and close. One came so near Faraj's face that she tried to cover it, and it rose whenever she did.

Emergency services told the women to drive back up the road because ambulances were blocked. As they tried to enter the car, a second missile struck. Both women were thrown backward. Khalil wrapped her arms around Faraj and said she hoped the drone would think they were dead. They took shelter in a nearby house. Khalil, who was bleeding from her face, hand, and leg, could not move. Faraj sent a final message to her sister before her phone died: "There's no hope left. Forgive me."

Faraj woke trapped under rubble. A paramedic held her by the shoulders, and a second worker cleared the debris. They pulled her out while drones returned. Faraj said a stun grenade was dropped by a drone during the rescue. In the ambulance, she mistook the engine noise for a drone. At the hospital, nurses reassured her about Khalil before going quiet. Khalil is believed to have died about an hour before paramedics were allowed back to the area after rescuing Faraj.

The Israeli military stated that it had identified saboteurs violating the ceasefire. Human rights groups called the attack a war crime. They noted that the military received repeated messages asking it to allow a rescue while the women sheltered in the building. A week earlier, an Israeli military spokesperson had shared a video of Khalil published by her newspaper and labelled it "terrorist media." Khalil had also received death threats from Israeli numbers.

Faraj says she is haunted by the sight of Hourani on the ground, his eyes open and looking at her. She is uncertain whether she will return to frontline journalism. She says she lost her sense of being on the move.