Rights groups say Israeli strikes on journalists in Lebanon were likely deliberate
Associated PressBEIRUT — Two Israeli strikes that killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians, two international human rights groups said Thursday. 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, and AFP’s photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins. It found that the group “was visibly identifiable as journalists and that the Israeli military knew or should have known that they were civilians yet attacked them.” London-based Amnesty said that it determined that the first strike, which killed Abdallah and severely wounded Assi, “was a 120mm tank round fired from the hills between al-Nawaqir and Jordeikh in Israel,” while the second strike appeared to be a different weapon, likely a small guided missile, causing a vehicle used by the Al Jazeera crew to go up in flames. Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director, condemned the “attack on a group of international journalists who were carrying out their work by reporting on hostilities.” “Direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks are absolutely prohibited by international humanitarian law and can amount to war crimes,” she said.