The October 13, 2023, assault in southern Lebanon killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six different reporters.
Printed On 14 Oct 2025
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Lebanon to proceed its pursuit of justice over a deadly Israeli strike two years in the past that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six different reporters.
The rights group stated in a press release on Monday that it welcomed a transfer by Lebanon’s Ministry of Justice to analyze authorized choices to press prices towards Israel for crimes against journalists.
Reporters With out Borders additionally welcomed that “Lebanon is lastly taking motion” as Israel is accused of focusing on numerous journalists throughout its navy aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.
Issam Abdallah, a videographer for the Reuters information company, was killed within the October 13, 2023, assault by an Israeli tank on southern Lebanon close to the Israeli border. Two Al Jazeera reporters have been amongst these injured.
HRW stated Lebanon’s announcement final week that it was taking a look at authorized choices to pursue the matter offered a “contemporary alternative to attain justice for the victims”.
Ramzi Kaiss, the NGO’s Lebanon researcher, stated the nation’s motion to carry Israel accountable is overdue.
“Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdallah ought to have served as a crystal clear message for Lebanon’s authorities that impunity for battle crimes begets extra battle crimes,” he stated.
“Since Issam’s killing, scores of different civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate assaults that violate the legal guidelines of battle and quantity to battle crimes,” Kaiss asserted.
‘Battle crime’
The October 2023 assault wounded Al Jazeera cameraman Elie Brakhia and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, and the AFP information company’s Christina Assi and Dylan Collins.
Assi was significantly wounded and needed to have her proper leg amputated.
HRW stated an investigation by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had discovered that an Israeli Merkava tank had fired two 120mm rounds on the group of clearly identifiable journalists.
The journalists have been faraway from the hostilities and had been stationary for greater than an hour once they got here below fireplace, the report stated. No alternate of fireside had been recorded throughout the border for greater than 40 minutes earlier than the assault.
The NGO stated it had discovered no proof of a navy goal close to the journalists’ location and, as a result of the incident gave the impression to be a deliberate assault on civilians, it constituted a battle crime.
‘Premeditated, focused assault’
Morris Tidball-Binz, UN particular rapporteur on extrajudicial, abstract or arbitrary executions, stated on Friday that the assault was “a premeditated, focused and double-tapped assault from the Israeli forces, a transparent violation, for my part, of [international humanitarian law], a battle crime”.
Reporters With out Borders urged Beirut to refer the case to the Worldwide Prison Court docket, saying on Friday: “Lebanon is lastly taking motion towards impunity for the crime.”
In February, the Committee to Shield Journalists stated a document 124 journalists had been killed in 2024 and Israel was responsible for greater than two-thirds of these deaths.
