“Israel” used a US-made munition in an airstrike on October 25 in South Lebanon, which targeted and killed three journalists and injured three others, a Guardian investigation revealed, which legal experts have classified as a potential war crime.

At 3:19 am on October 25, an Israeli fighter jet dropped two bombs on a chalet where three journalists were staying—Al Mayadeen’s cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda and Al Manar’s cameraman Wissam Qassem. The three journalists were killed while they slept. The attack also wounded three other journalists from various outlets who were staying nearby. There had been no fighting in the area before or at the time of the strike.

The Guardian visited the site, spoke with the property owner and journalists who survived the attack, examined shrapnel recovered from the scene, and traced Israeli surveillance equipment near the journalists’ location. Based on these pieces of evidence, three international humanitarian law experts concluded that the attack could qualify as a war crime and called for a thorough investigation.

“All the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime. This was clearly delineated as a place where journalists were staying,” said Nadim Houry, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative.

A separate investigation by Human Rights Watch corroborated these findings, determining that Israeli forces carried out the attack using US-made weapons, including a JDAM guidance kit.

Al Mayadeen report