Despite lack of institutional support, slain Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil's sister, Zainab, seeks for justice

Article 13 of the framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel, in which Lebanon commits not to pursue legal action against Israel in international forums, is not going stop at least one Lebanese citizen from seeking justice for their loved ones killed by Israel over the past years of war.

"Even if the government doesn't take this further, we won't stop. We'll keep pursuing it ourselves. We can't accept that Amal's martyrdom just gets buried, that Israel gets to commit more crimes without any accountability. We stand behind whatever decisions and steps need to be taken. We won't be silent about this, and we won't back down," Zainab Khalil, sister of Amal Khalil—the Al-Akhbar journalist killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on 22 April 2026—told The New Arab.

"Amal was reporting from the south as she used to do since 2006. On that day, it was in the news that the Israeli army was going to withdraw from the village of Al-Tayri, and the Lebanese army was present as well, so that's why Amal went to report. Amal was the voice of the people. She was there to tell the people what was going on in their villages, when they themselves could not go there and check," her sister recalled of the day Khalil killed by Israel.

"She didn't think she was risking her life. She was courageous, but she believed it was safe. As usual, she felt she could go and report; she's a journalist. But the Israelis killed her for that reason, because they didn't want Amal to show the truth," she added.

Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike after being trapped for hours in a building she and another journalist, Zeinab Faraj, were sheltering in.

Both were on assignment, reporting on recent Israeli attacks on the southern village of Bint Jbeil, when the pair took cover after a strike on a nearby civilian vehicle on the main road in Al Tayri that killed two people.

They were trapped under rubble for around seven hours after a direct Israeli strike hit the building they were sheltering in. Direct fire by Israeli forces at ambulances prevented rescue operations from reaching the site. 

The journalist was found dead after the Red Cross was granted limited access to the site, which remained under active fire by Israeli forces. Teams were able to evacuate Faraj, who reportedly sustained critical head injuries, and two other civilian who were killed, before being forced to withdraw due to continued shelling and the direct firing on rescue crews and vehicles.

About a week before Khalil's killing by Israel, the Israeli army's Arabic spokesperson Avichae Adraee, shared a post on X, showing Amal Khalil saving a cat trapped under the rubble of a house in the village of Ansariyeh, southern Lebanon, calling her a "devil who is playing the role of the compassionate heart."

To date, no one has been held to account.

As of the most recent data, published by the Lebanese Health Ministry on 24 July, the death toll in Lebanon has risen to 4,330 since 2 March, when Israel unleashed an invasion of the country.

Amal is among nine media professionals killed by Israeli attacks.

However, the data registered by the Lebanese Health Ministry remains under-reported, since Israel continues bombarding southern Lebanon—mainly in Bint Jbeil, Ali al-Taher hill, and the vicinity of Nabatiyeh, such as the Beaufort Castle.

Israeli attacks also continue in municipalities that sit outside the "buffer zone" defined by Israel's so-proclaimed "Yellow Line", which extends up to 10 km inside Lebanon.

In Mansouri, in the Sour district, for instance, locals reported to The New Arab, on 27 July, despite no combat taking place, Israel continues to prevent residents from returning to their homes while destroying residential buildings. This violation persists despite an alleged ceasefire in place since the most recent version of the agreement was signed on 26 June.

The Israeli attacks are daily and have resulted in the destruction of civil infrastructure, followed by the entrapment of civilians under rubble, diminishing the chances of rescue and of victims being recorded in official state figures, since first-aid services cannot go beyond the line.

The distinction between missing, killed, and displaced individuals remains particularly difficult to determine for most of the 52 Lebanese villages that sit inside the Israeli-drawn "Yellow Line".

Despite Israel's ongoing campaign of demolishing civil infrastructure, residents of some Christian-majority villages close to the border, such as Rmeish and Marjayoun, have reportedly been allowed to remain, but under conditions of siege.

This tally of 52 villages excludes the three recently implemented "pilot zones"—Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Froun, and Srifa—which mark the beginning of Israel's supposed withdrawal.

Inside the "Yellow Line", remaining Lebanese residents find themselves besieged in a zone divided by Israeli checkpoints, in a pattern similar to what is observed in the occupied West Bank, with limited access to food, water, and medical care.

On 4 July, a shepherd reported the presence of decomposed human remains by the road near Wadi Slouqi to the Lebanese Army. The valley was one of several sites in the area where Israeli occupation soldiers and Hezbollah had recently fought.

L'Orient Today reported that a search for Jawad Shadi Bazzi, Hadi Kamal al-Raqqa, Mohammad Ali Hassan and Ali Mousa Qashmar had focused several kilometers further south. The four men were last seen near where the Wadi Hujeir valley, in Marjayoun district, meets the Bint Jbeil villages of Shaqra, Safad al-Batikh, and Majdal Selm.

The findings indicate that the remains belong to three of the four men who disappeared. During the search, rescuers from the Islamic Health Society's Civil Defence found Hassan, one of the missing men, alive. He survived by taking shelter in a nearby empty house for two weeks relying on scarce amounts of food and water, before being found. For an extended period, authorities were unable to determine his whereabouts. Such negligence raises concerns about the reliability of Lebanese data on missing and dead individuals inside the "Yellow Line".

As Israel's attacks on civilian life in Lebanon have continued largely without consequence, rights groups and media watchdogs are pointing to a pattern: institutions meant to hold Israel accountable, and organisations meant to protect the civilians caught in its attacks, have found themselves lacking the proper data and presence inside the occupied zones to do so.

Civilians are theoretically protected under international humanitarian law, regardless of who they work for or what they were reporting on.

The most recent example is the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), late-June review of its criteria for classifying journalists, launched after it removed 20 names from its Gaza journalist death toll—eight over alleged combat involvement, and twelve for other reasons.

CPJ's board chair, Jacob Weisberg, denied the organisation had ever planned to exclude Palestinian or Lebanese journalists, calling the allegations "unsubstantiated."

On 1 July, the board voted to affirm its existing definition.

Under international humanitarian law, journalists are classified as civilians and must not be targeted, provided they take no part in hostilities. This protection is set out in Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which applies regardless of a journalist's employer or perceived political bias.

Asked about CPJ's controversial stance toward Palestinian and Lebanese journalists, Zainab Khalil, Amal's sister was direct: "How come a committee, that is supposed to protect journalists, question the status of media professionals, such as Amal and others, if they're journalists or not. Such an organisation should be categorically with them, protecting them, supporting their work, and preventing them from being targeted. They should advocate for their rights in life, not only when they are killed."

As Lebanese and Israeli delegations meet in Rome for a fresh round of talks, calls to protect civilians in the south, both residents and those working on the front lines, and polemic agreements such as the Article 13, are being overshadowed by a narrower technical agenda: the rollout of new "pilot zones" meant to pave the way for an Israeli withdrawal and a Lebanese Army takeover of areas once held by Hezbollah.

The current round follows a sixth session in July, during which Lebanon and Israel agreed on the structure and guidelines for the "pilot zone" process. Lebanese officials are now expected to push for additional zones, with the next phase intentionally covering Bint Jbeil or Khiam, both south of the Litani River, reports Al Jazeera.

But while the zone-by-zone mechanics dominate the agenda, demands for reparations to cover the destruction and human losses inflicted on southern Lebanon remain confined to side discussions, away from the top of Beirut's negotiating priorities. 

The imbalance underscores a recurring pattern in the talks: technical sequencing over accountability, with the human and material cost of the war treated as an afterthought rather than a condition of the process itself, making cases, such as Khalil’s, seem like not a major priority for Lebanese officials.