Zeinab Faraj Recounts Lebanon Strike That Killed Amal Khalil

A photojournalist's visit to inspect bomb damage in southern Lebanon turned into a survival story.

Zeinab Faraj, 21, and newspaper reporter Amal Khalil, 42, traveled south on 22 April, weeks into a ceasefire that followed a month of Israeli airstrikes. They drove toward al-Tini with Ali Nabil Bazzi, 27, a Bint Jbeil municipal official, and Mohammed Hourani, 37, a friend of the mayor. A missile struck the car carrying Bazzi and Hourani. Faraj said she did not hear the missile, only Khalil's scream.

Drones then arrived low over the area. A paramedic told the two women to drive back up the road because ambulances could not reach them. Their own car was hit by a missile as they tried to get inside. Khalil held onto Faraj. The women took shelter in a house. Faraj sent her sister a message reading, "There's no hope left. Forgive me," before her phone battery died.

Paramedics reached the site and found Faraj under rubble. They pulled her out as drones returned. Khalil, injured in the face, hand and leg, could not move from the shelter. She is believed to have died about an hour before rescuers were allowed back into the area after extracting Faraj.

The Israeli military said its forces had identified saboteurs violating the ceasefire. Human rights groups called the attack a war crime and noted that the military had received repeated messages asking it to permit a rescue while the women were in the building. A week before the strikes, an Israeli military spokesperson had shared a video of Khalil published by her newspaper and labeled it "terrorist media." Khalil also had received death threats from Israeli numbers.

Faraj is a student in radio and television who has been freelancing. She said she grew up in Bint Jbeil and that leaving it feels like a fish out of water. She is preparing to return to university with an injured hand, a facial injury affecting one eyebrow, and trouble walking. She wakes at night screaming. "I was always on the move. I lost that," she said.