Dutch group confirms Israeli tank fire killed Lebanese journalist
A report by an independent research organization in The Netherlands confirmed that Israeli tank fire killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in southern Lebanon last October.
The journalists were covering cross-border clashes between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Oct. 13, just days after the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, when an Israeli tank shell landed among them.
The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, TNO, said that after two ammunition rounds struck the area where the journalists were working, “arms fire and bullets whizzing through the air were heard.” It said the two ammunition rounds were 37 seconds apart.
The report by TNO, which was contracted by Reuters to analyze evidence from southern Lebanon clashes on Oct. 13, was released Thursday. It said the Israeli fire in the attack lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds.
Israeli officials have said that they do not deliberately target journalists. Israel did not immediately comment on the Dutch group's findings.
In December, international human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Israeli strikes that killed and wounded the journalists on Oct. 13 were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians.
The strikes killed Issam Abdallah and wounded Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, as well as AFP’s photographer Christina Assi and video journalist Dylan Collins.
Assi, who was seriously wounded, was discharged from Beirut’s American University Medical Center earlier this month, after nearly five months of treatment.
Source: Associated Press
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