Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) - Lebanon said an Israeli air strike killed three journalists on Friday, in an attack on the country’s south that the minister of information branded as a “war crime”.

Pro-Iran Lebanese television channel Al Mayadeen said a cameraman and broadcast engineer were killed in the strike targeting a journalists’ residence in Hasbaya, south Lebanon.

Another TV outlet, Al-Manar, run by Hezbollah, said one of its video journalists was also killed in the strike.

“The Israeli enemy waited for the journalists’ nighttime break to betray them in their sleep,” Information Minister Ziad Makary said in a post on X.

“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with prior planning and design, as there were 18 journalists there representing seven media institutions. This is a war crime.”

Journalists from other media organisations, including Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, Sky News Arabic and Al Jazeera English, were also resting nearby when the strike hit overnight.

Israel has not commented on the strike, which, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, also wounded three other people.

The area where the journalists were located is outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.

Israel has been at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon since late last month, in a bid to secure its northern border after nearly a year of cross-border fire from the Iran-backed armed group.

Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in its history.

After nearly a year of war in Gaza sparked by the attack, Israel expanded its focus to Lebanon and last month launched a massive bombing campaign targeting mainly Hezbollah strongholds across the country, sending in ground troops on September 30.

The war in Lebanon has killed at least 1,580 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.

Israel’s military on Friday said it had struck more than 200 militant targets in Lebanon over the past day.

- Talks gain momentum -

The Lebanon strike came as stalled efforts to end the war in Gaza appeared to gain new momentum.

The war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 42,847 people, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, data which the United Nations considers reliable.

Previous bids to stop the war have failed, though the United States has voiced hope the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week could serve as an opening for a deal.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that a delegation from the group’s Doha-based leadership discussed “ideas and proposals” related to a Gaza truce with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Thursday.

“Hamas has expressed readiness to stop the fighting, but Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the official said, reiterating the Islamist group’s position.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he welcomed mediator Egypt’s readiness to reach a deal “for the release of the hostages” still held by militants in Gaza.

After the Cairo meeting, Netanyahu directed the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency to leave for Qatar on Sunday to “advance a series of initiatives that are on the agenda”, his office said.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have long tried to mediate a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Qatar’s leaders in Doha on Thursday on his 11th trip to the region since the start of the Gaza war.

- ‘Time is running out’ -

During the trip, which comes less than two weeks before US elections, Blinken said mediators would explore new options.

He said they were seeking a plan “so that Israel can withdraw, so that Hamas cannot reconstitute, and so that the Palestinian people can rebuild their lives and rebuild their futures”.

Israeli and US officials as well as some analysts said Sinwar had been a key obstacle to a deal allowing for the release of 97 hostages still held in Gaza, 34 of whom the Israeli military says are dead.

Critics of Netanyahu, too, have regularly accused him of obstructing truce and hostage release negotiations.

An Israeli group representing families of hostages called on Netanyahu and Hamas to secure an agreement to free the remaining captives.

“Time is running out,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.

On Thursday, hostage supporters marched outside Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence demanding action for their release.

Blinken landed late Thursday in London, where a US official said he would meet on Friday with the foreign ministers of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

The official said Blinken would also hold talks with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on the parallel war in that country.

- Hundreds dead in days -

On the battlefield, Israel’s military has kept up pressure on Hamas, this month besieging the north of Gaza where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped.

The military on Friday said dozens of militants were killed around Jabalia, north Gaza, over the previous day, and others were killed during fighting in central and southern Gaza.

Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said “more than 770 people have been killed” in north Gaza in the 19 days since the Israeli operation began there.

The Israeli military says the goal of its assault is to destroy the operational capabilities it says Hamas is trying to rebuild in the north – where the military in January had declared the Hamas command structure dismantled.