Ghassan Najjar was a camera operator for al-Mayadeen, a pan-Arab television network. With his news team he was covering the Israeli military assault on southern Lebanon. Together with 17 other journalists and media workers from a variety of news outlets, Ghassan was staying in a group of guesthouses providing accommodation to media in the town of Hasbaya. They had recently moved here from a previous press compound further south, in Marjayoun, because it had been hit by Israeli airstrikes.
At around 3am on 25 October, Israel Defence Forces hit the press chalet where Ghassan was staying with an airstrike. Ghassan and two others sleeping in the building – Mohammed Reda and Wissam Kassem – were killed in the attack; several others journalists in chalets nearby were wounded. At least one of the bombs dropped in the attack is believed to have been US-made.
‘Ghassan was not a member of Hezbollah, he was a member of the press. He never had a gun, not even for hunting. His weapon was his camera’, said Ghassan’s wife. ‘He really was a great man. I know he looked so big, but he was really a gentle man. And he was so, so funny.’
‘I still don’t believe that Ghassan died. I’m still waiting for the door to open and for him to enter. He promised me that someday we would grow old and we would go live in the south together – but now he stayed there and I will stay here, in Beirut, forever,’ she said.
Ghassan leaves behind his wife, Sana, and his three-year-old son.