The Israeli army said on Saturday it was investigating an incident in southern Lebanon in which a Reuters journalist was killed. A Reuters witness at the scene has said he was struck by missiles fired from the direction of Israel.
“We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist,” army spokesman Lt Col Richard Hecht told a regular briefing. “We are looking into it. We already have visuals. We’re doing cross examination. It’s a tragic thing,” he said.
Lebanon said on Saturday said it would submit a formal complaint to the UN Security Council on “Israel’s deliberate killing” of Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah, a Lebanese national, state media reported.
Abdallah was with a group of journalists from other organisations, including Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse, when he was killed on Friday while providing a live video signal for broadcasters.
The group was working near the village of Alma al-Shaab, close to the Israel border, where the Israeli military and Hezbollah have been trading fire in border clashes.
Maher Nazeh, who was wounded in the same incident along with his Reuters colleague Thaer Al-Sudani, said they were filming missile fire coming from the direction of Israel when one struck Abdallah as he was sitting on a low stone wall near the rest of the group. Seconds later, another missile hit the car being used by the group, setting it aflame.
While other news outlets, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, said the shells were Israeli, Reuters could not establish whether the missiles had actually been fired by Israel.
Agence France-Presse and Al Jazeera each said two of their journalists were wounded in the incident.
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