Lebanon’s information minister has said the Israeli military waited for journalists in Lebanon’s southern Hasbaiyya to go to sleep before launching a deliberate air strike on them, Al Jazeera reports.

The three slain journalists from the Al Mayadeen and al-Manar TV channels had been transmitting Israeli “crimes” to the world, minister Ziad Makary wrote in a post on X.

“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” he said.

“This is a war crime.”