The Israeli army said Saturday it was investigating an incident in southern Lebanon in which a Reuters journalist was killed.
The news came the same day Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry said it plans to submit a formal complaint to the UN Security Council on “Israel’s deliberate killing” of Issam Abdallah, a Lebanese national and visuals journalist whose funeral Saturday was attended by hundreds of people.
A Reuters witness at the scene has said he was struck by missiles fired from the direction of Israel.
Draped in a Lebanese flag, Abdallah’s body was carried Saturday on a stretcher through the streets of the southern town of Khiam, from his family’s home to the local cemetery.
Dozens of journalists and Lebanese lawmakers attended the funeral.
The Lebanese army said in a statement Saturday that Israeli troops fired a shell the day before hitting a civilian car used by journalists, killing Abdallah and wounding others. The army said other areas in south Lebanon at the time were targeted by an Israeli helicopter gunship and artillery, including the outskirts of the villages of Marwaheen, Kfar Chouba, Aita al-Shaab and Odaisseh.
Israel is investigating the matter. “We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist,” an Israeli army spokesperson, Lt.-Col. Richard Hecht, told a regular briefing.
“We are looking into it. We already have visuals. We’re doing cross-examination. It’s a tragic thing.”
2 journalists also wounded
Abdallah was with a group of journalists from other organizations, including Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse, when he was killed while providing a live video signal for broadcasters.
The group was working near the village of Alma al-Shaab, close to the Israel border, where the Israeli military and Hezbollah have been trading fire in border clashes.
Featured VideoAn Israeli shell landed among a group of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon Friday afternoon, killing Issam Abdallah, a Reuters videographer and leaving six other journalists injured. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry is now calling for a UN investigation of the incident.
Maher Nazeh, who was wounded in the same incident along with his Reuters colleague, Thaer Al-Sudani, said they were filming missile fire coming from the direction of Israel when one struck Abdallah as he was sitting on a low stone wall near the rest of the group. Seconds later, another missile hit the car being used by the group, setting it aflame.
Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV said its cameraman, Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, were wounded as well. France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, said two of its journalists were also wounded. They were identified as photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins.
AFP reported Saturday that Assi was in need of blood transfusions at the American University Medical Center in Beirut where she was hospitalized. The Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing sporadic acts of violence since Saturday’s surprise attack by the militant Palestinian group Hamas on southern Israel.
While other news outlets, including the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera, said the shells were Israeli, Reuters could not establish whether the missiles had actually been fired by Israel.
The international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said Saturday that Abdallah, 37, was the seventh journalist to be killed covering the Israel-Hamas war in a week, including six killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza that has followed the deadly Oct. 7 offensive by Hamas.
The organization said that Abdallah and the others with him were “clearly identifiable” as journalists, according to several sources.
Abdallah had worked for Reuters in Beirut for 16 years and had covered other conflicts, including the war in Ukraine.
A week before his death, he had posted a tribute to Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist with the Al-Jazeera satellite channel who was killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank, on his social media accounts.
