2023-10-30 01:46:00
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) presented a report this Sunday in which it stated that Reuters news agency journalist Issam Abdallah, who died in a bombing in southern Lebanon on October 13, as well as six other correspondents who suffered injuries, They were taken as “targets”, although he did not directly blame the Israeli Army.
“Two bombardments of different intensities, with an interval of 37 to 38 seconds, hit on Friday, October 13, around 6 p.m., the place where a group of seven journalists had been for more than an hour,” stationed on a route to cover rising tensions at the border, the report states.
“The first bombing killed Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah and seriously injured AFP correspondent Christina Assi, while the second caused the Al Jazeera vehicle to explode (…), injuring several of her colleagues”detailed RSF.
The NGO did not directly question the Israeli army, but indicated that “according to the ballistic analysis commissioned by RSF, the area where the shots came from is to the east of the place where the group of journalists and their cars were targeted, where is the border with Israel.
Artillery duels between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, as well as attempts to infiltrate Palestinian commandos into Israel from that area, have multiplied since the attack by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7.
All members of the group wore helmets and vests with the inscription “Press”, so “it is impossible for them to have been confused with combatants,” one of the NGO’s researchers explains in a video.
???? Reporters Without Borders denounces that the investigation it has carried out into the death of Reuters cameraman Isam Abdullah reveals a “deliberate attack” by Israel against a group of international journalists https://t.co/ab5pXAn4Fy
— Europa Press (@europapress) October 29, 2023
They were also “uncovered for more than an hour on a hill, that is, they were clearly visible,” he emphasizes.
“The first conclusions of the investigation allow us to establish that the reporters were not collateral victims of the shooting,” says the organization, according to the report cited by the AFP news agency.
“The fact that there were two bombings in the same place with such a short interval (a little more than 30 seconds) clearly indicates that they were precise targets” who were targeted, RSF affirms, insisting that it is “implausible that journalists have been confused with combatants.”
According to two journalists who were at the scene, questioned by RSF, an Israeli Apache helicopter flew over the scene before the tragedy.
Lebanese authorities attributed the bombings to Israel.
The Israeli army indicated that it was carrying out verifications about what happened and “regretted” the incident.
The AFP news agency is carrying out its own investigation and called on Israel and Lebanon to investigate what happened “in depth.”
The Reuters agency also urged Israeli authorities to carry out a “prompt, in-depth and transparent investigation.”
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