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July 27, 2006updated 22 Nov 2022 8:25pm

Photographer first media death in Lebanon crisis

By Press Gazette

On Sunday, the first journalist was killed covering the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militia.

According to the International Federation of Journalists, AFP photographer Layal Nejib, 23, was travelling in a taxi when a missile exploded nearby.

On Saturday, Israeli air raids killed a technician working for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC).

Joseph Kosseifi, of the Lebanon Journalists Syndicate, told Press Gazette: “On 13 July, the Israelis hit Al-Manor TV and Al Noor radio station, but the biggest attacks occurred on 22 July, when they hit LBC.”

He said that his organisation had sent a “cry of help”, urging Israel to “respect the convention of the UN”.

The chairman of the National Federation of Israeli Journalists, Arie Shaked, has accused the IFJ of having an “automatic anti-Israeli position” that he said has led to his decision to suspend their membership of the international press organisation.

Shaked said: “There is definitely an anti-Israel trend in the IFJ. We still do not hear any condemnation of the terrorist attacks on Israel and on the Israeli media by Hezbollah.”

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On the targeting of Lebanese broadcaster Al-Manar by Israeli missiles – a move strongly criticised by the IFJ – Shaked said: “Al-Manar speaks terrorist propaganda aimed to attack the state of Israel. I have no problems with attacking this terrorist television station.”

IFJ general secretary Aidan White said the bombing was “a clear demonstration that Israel has a policy of using violence to silence media it does not agree with.”

The Israeli association’s representative on the IFJ executive committee, Yaron Enosh, said: “Al-Manar are not journalists.

They are a section of a terrorist organisation and I won’t carry the same press card that they carry.”

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