The Israeli forces have long used the pretext that journalists are affiliated with armed groups to justify their killing. We have seen these unfounded allegations repeated time and time again. In 2025, Israeli officials falsely alleged that martyred journalist Anas al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas, a claim which was then rejected by Al Jazeera affirming he had no such affiliation.
To the Toronto Star and Associated Press,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) regarding the Associated Press article published in the Toronto Star on April 22, 2026, titled “Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil killed in Israeli strike on a house where she took cover, paper says.”
The article reports that Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoaib was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a journalists’ car in Jezzine, southern Lebanon, in which Al-Mayadeen correspondent Fatima Ftouni was also killed.
However, the article then specifies that the Israeli forces said they targeted Shoaib as he was a Hezbollah intelligence operative, while admitting that the IDF did not provide any evidence to corroborate this claim.
Glaringly, the article omits that this baseless allegation has been rejected by Shoaib’s colleagues as well as by UN experts, who have also emphasized that journalists working for media outlets affiliated with an armed group remain protected under international law.
It is relevant to draw attention to the standards applied in similar reporting. In its coverage of Israel’s killing of four Lebanese paramedics on April 15, CBC News, in an analysis piece by Chris Brown, gave space to a paramedic on the ground who had stated that targeting medical teams constitutes a war crime under international law, regardless of their affiliation.
As the AP article reports, Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in southern Lebanon, where she remained trapped under the rubble for six hours as the Israeli forces blocked rescue workers from reaching her. This is also not an isolated incident, but part of Israel’s documented pattern of systemically targeting journalists. In occupied Gaza alone, Israel was responsible for killing two-thirds of all journalist and media worker killings in 2025, driving the total to a record 129 - the highest number ever recorded by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in more than three decades of documentation.
The Israeli forces have long used the pretext that journalists are affiliated with armed groups to justify their killing. We have seen these unfounded allegations repeated time and time again. In 2025, Israeli officials falsely alleged that martyred journalist Anas al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas, a claim which was then rejected by Al Jazeera affirming he had no such affiliation.
I therefore urge you, in the name of upholding the pillars of fair, accurate, and balanced journalism, to amend the article to:
- Clarify that the targeting of journalists even those working for media outlets affiliated with an armed group remains prohibited under international law; and
- Specify that Shoaib’s colleagues, as well as UN experts, have rejected the baseless claim that he was a Hezbollah intelligence operative.
The Toronto Star and the Associated Press have a responsibility to edit their reporting in light of these concerns, especially when it concerns the killing of journalists, given your status as reputable media outlets with journalists and reporters on the ground.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East