Israeli strike in Lebanon that killed a journalist, hurt others, warrants war crime probe: Watchdogs
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Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed on Oct 13 by what an investigation has found was an Israeli tank crew.
PHOTO: REUTERS
PARIS – The Israeli strike that killed one journalist and injured six others in Lebanon merits a “war crime” investigation, rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Dec 7.
Mr Issam Abdallah, 37, was killed instantly in the strike on Oct 13 in the south of Lebanon near the Israeli border.
The others present – two other Reuters journalists, two from Al Jazeera, and two from Agence France-Presse – were all injured.
AFP photographer Christina Assi, 28, was seriously wounded, later had a leg amputated, and is still in hospital.
Independent investigations by both rights groups concluded, like an AFP investigation published earlier on Dec 7, that the first strike that killed Mr Abdallah and severely wounded Ms Assi was most likely a tank round fired from Israel.
Amnesty said the strikes “were likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime”.
“Those responsible for Issam Abdallah’s unlawful killing and the injuring of six other journalists must be held accountable,” said Ms Aya Majzoub, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“No journalist should ever be targeted or killed simply for carrying out their work. Israel must not be allowed to kill and attack journalists with impunity.”
HRW said the two Israeli strikes “were apparently deliberate attacks on civilians, which is a war crime”.
Under international humanitarian law, “it is forbidden in any circumstances to carry out direct attacks against civilians”, it said.
The group’s investigation indicated that the journalists were “well removed from ongoing hostilities, clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes before they were hit”.
Amnesty said images it verified showed “the seven journalists were wearing body armour labelled ‘press’, and that the blue Reuters crew car was marked ‘TV’ with yellow tape on its hood”.
“The evidence strongly suggests that Israeli forces knew or should have known that the group that they were attacking were journalists,” HRW’s Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss said.
“This is an unlawful and apparently deliberate attack on a very visible group of journalists.”
Since Oct 7, 63 journalists and media workers – 56 Palestinian, four Israeli and three Lebanese – have been killed, the Committee to Protect Journalists says. AFP
