A Reuters investigation concluded that an Israeli army tank killed a Reuters journalist and injured six other journalists in Lebanon on October 13 by firing two shells in quick succession from within Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling. The strikes resulted in the death of journalist Issam Abdullah, 37, from Reuters, and left AFP photographer Christina Asi, 28, seriously injured about one kilometer from the Israeli border near the village of Almaa Shaab.
Reuters interviewed over 30 government officials, security personnel, military experts, forensic investigators, lawyers, paramedics, and witnesses to construct a detailed account of the incident. The agency reviewed hours of video from eight media outlets present in the area at the time, along with hundreds of photos taken before and after the attack, including high-resolution satellite images.
In its investigation, Reuters also gathered evidence from the site, including debris found on the ground, remnants inside the Reuters vehicle, three bulletproof vests, a camera, a tripod, and a large metal piece. The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), an independent research institution that tests and analyzes munitions and weapons for clients such as the Dutch Ministry of Defense, examined the materials for Reuters at its laboratories in The Hague.
Key findings from the Dutch organization indicated that the large metal piece was part of the tail of a 120mm tank shell fired by a tank stationed 1.34 kilometers away from the reporters across the Lebanese border. Reuters presented its findings to the Israeli army, inquiring whether Israeli forces were aware that they were firing at journalists. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, the international spokesperson for the Israeli army, stated, "We do not target journalists," but provided no further comments.
The group comprised seven journalists from AFP, Al Jazeera, and Reuters, all wearing blue bulletproof vests and helmets, most of which bore the word "PRESS" or "Journalism" in white letters. There were also reporters from at least seven other media outlets in Almaa Shaab and its surroundings that day.
Alessandra Galoni, the editor-in-chief of Reuters, stated, "The evidence we have now, which we have published today, shows that a crew of an Israeli tank killed our colleague Issam Abdullah." She added, "We condemn the killing of Issam. We call on Israel to clarify how this happened and hold accountable those responsible for the killing of Issam, the injury to Christina Asi from AFP, and our colleagues Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazih, and the three other journalists." She continued, "Issam was a brilliant and passionate journalist, well-loved at Reuters."
AFP stated that the evidence gathered by Reuters corroborates its own analysis of the incident. Phil Stewens, AFP's global news director, emphasized, "It is imperative that Israel provides a clear explanation of what happened. Targeting a clearly identified group of journalists is unacceptable and inexplicable." Hesham Habballah, head of the international relations department at Al Jazeera, remarked, "Reuters' investigation into the October 13 attack highlights the troubling pattern of Israel deliberately targeting journalists in an attempt to silence those reporting on events."
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on journalists as media workers enjoy full protection granted to civilians and cannot be considered military targets. In the days following the attack, the Israeli army stated it was investigating the incident but did not announce any findings. Caroline Edgerton, an expert in international criminal law who worked on war crimes cases in the Balkans, noted that photographing Israeli tank locations at the border could be viewed as a threat if that information was deemed "valuable for targeting operations against forces in Lebanon." In written responses to Reuters’ inquiries, she stated that firing two successive shells at a clearly identified group of journalists "represents a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and may also amount to a war crime of attacking civilians."
Directly targeting civilians or civilian objects is strictly prohibited under the laws of armed conflict, such as the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which all UN member states have ratified. Neither Israel nor Lebanon have signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which its 124 member states have accepted its jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
The attack was the first of two fatal incidents involving journalists in Lebanon covering clashes between the Israeli army and the Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters along the border following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7. Two journalists from the Lebanese Al Mayadeen channel were killed by a strike on November 21 while filming near the border with Israel. Al Mayadeen held the Israeli army responsible for their deaths. The Israeli army stated in a statement that it was a dangerous area to be in due to "active hostilities."
Since the start of the war on Gaza, Israeli and Hezbollah forces have exchanged fire almost daily across the border known as the Blue Line, which the UN delineated to mark Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. On October 13, reports of Hezbollah fighters infiltrating Israel and subsequent cross-border shelling led to reporters from at least ten Lebanese and international news outlets converging on the area in and around Almaa Shaab. These outlets included Italy’s RAI, Germany's Die Welt newspaper, and the Associated Press.
A Reuters team of three, accompanied by two from AFP, went to a site east of the village where Al Jazeera had been conducting a live broadcast from the border earlier that day. Once set up, Reuters began live transmission for its global television subscribers at 5:15 PM (1515 GMT), showing smoke rising behind a row of trees to the south, interspersed with intermittent shelling. After filming for 45 minutes amidst the continuous buzzing of drones overhead and an Israeli helicopter patrolling, the Reuters team pointed its camera at an Israeli military site slightly more than two kilometers away in Hanita, capturing footage of a tank firing a shell from there toward southern Lebanon. The AFP and Al Jazeera teams were also live broadcasting, pointing their cameras simultaneously to show the Israeli position in Hanita.
Less than 90 seconds later, the first shell from the tank landed near Issam Abdullah and a low wall he was leaning against, killing him instantly and disrupting Reuters' live broadcast. The cameras of AFP and Al Jazeera were mounted just a few meters away, continuing to transmit and capturing plumes of dust rising behind them and recording the screams of Christina Asi, the AFP correspondent who was hit by shrapnel in her legs. After 37 seconds, a second shell struck the Al Jazeera vehicle, igniting it, halting AFP's broadcast and knocking down Al Jazeera’s camera, which instead filmed clouds in the sky and recorded the yells and cries of the injured journalists.
Reuters photographer Thaer Al-Sudani, 47, based in Baghdad, stated, "Why did they hit us? Why didn't they fire a warning shot? If you don't want us to take pictures, fire a warning shot. Why did they suddenly hit us without any warning and then try to finish us off with the second strike?"
**Shell Tail**
The conclusions drawn by scientists from the Dutch organization heavily relied on three critical pieces of evidence: the aluminum tail of the tank shell obtained by Reuters, previously unpublished video provided by Italy’s RAI showing the launch point of the second strike, and the sound of the two shells taken from Al Jazeera's live broadcast. Video and images captured by Al-Sudani and Maher Nazih, Reuters photographer, in the minutes following the attack show the shell tail on the ground near Issam's body in a field behind the low wall struck by the first shell.
The Dutch organization noted that a satellite image taken on October 12 and a picture captured by Issam shortly before the attack showed no signs of prior ordnance strikes such as craters, debris, or fire damage; thus, it concluded that the shell tail was related to the attack. The organization also revealed that laboratory analyses found strontium and magnesium in a small pocket in the tail, which are elements known as conventional tracer munitions components, a type of incendiary charge that burns during projectile launch to display its trajectory.
The Dutch organization stated, "Based on its characteristics, the large piece recovered from the scene was identified as a tail of a 120mm tank shell with tracer ammunition fired using a smoothbore 120mm tank gun." Nick Reynolds, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, noted that the armored brigades deployed by the Israeli army in northern Israel are equipped with Merkava battle tanks featuring smooth-bore 120mm cannons.
Three military experts confirmed that there is no record of Hezbollah using tanks with 120mm ammunition. The Lebanese army informed Reuters that its largest tank shell is 105mm and that it has no tanks stationed along the border with Israel. Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makari stated, "I believe that the killing of journalists is part of Israel's military strategy to kill the truth." He added that following Reuters' investigation, the government is considering filing a lawsuit regarding Israeli violations, including the killing of Issam, before an international court. While he did not specify the court, he acknowledged that the International Criminal Court is not an option since Lebanon is not a signatory to its statute.
Makari asserted that the killing of journalists in Gaza and Lebanon is evidence that Israel deliberately targets media personnel. The day after the attack, Lebanese security forces reported conducting a technical assessment of the site, indicating Israeli involvement. The Lebanese army and military intelligence did not respond to requests to review the technical assessment.
**Tank Smoke**
The Dutch organization analyzed audio recordings of both strikes from Al Jazeera's live broadcast along with video and sound from RAI's footage to pinpoint the geographic location of the shelling coordinates. RAI reporters were filming cross-border shelling on October 13 from Almaa Shaab when they heard the sound of the first strike and turned their camera toward the explosion. The footage shows plumes of dust rising from behind trees where the first shell struck, with some smoke rising to the right of the launch site.
The camera then captured the second strike, showing the shell being fired from the same area where smoke was still visible in the sky, with parts of the Al Jazeera vehicle scattering high above the trees at the time of the hit. Using audio recordings from Al Jazeera, the Dutch organization calculated the time interval between the sounds of the two impacts and the booms from the gun's firing to determine that the firing point was 1,343 meters from the reporters. They added that the sound signatures of both strikes matched, indicating that both shells were fired from the same location.
By compiling data from sound analysis with RAI's footage and the locations of the RAI camera and the reporters, the Dutch organization mapped the firing point at coordinates 3.57'05°33 North and 3.44'12°35 East, with a margin of error of 17 meters. According to Google Maps, these coordinates are situated on a slope in a military site in Jurdih within Israeli territory, adjacent to the border with Lebanon. Military experts say that tanks often ascend such hills to fire and then retreat down the slope for cover.
Eric Kron, the lead investigator of the October 13 incident from the Dutch organization, stated, "By determining the trajectories, we were able to pinpoint the firing point, which is located just behind the UN Blue Line." The organization noted that based on the tail's characteristics and the calculated average shell speed of 932 meters per second, the two shells that struck the journalists were either anti-personnel/anti-materiel rounds of the M329 model or high-explosive rounds of the M339 model, or a mix of both. Elbit Systems Land, based in Haifa, manufactures both types of shells. They did not respond to requests for comment.
A separate review of shell fragment photographs conducted by the London-based Center for Information Resilience, an international organization investigating potential human rights abuses and war crimes, concluded that the fragments were from a 120mm tank shell produced by Elbit Systems. The Dutch organization indicated that its analysis engaged seven staff members from its active materials department, which was reviewed by a senior scientist and a principal researcher at the institution.
The organization provided Reuters with a ten-page summary of its main findings to date and will present a final report in early 2024.
**In Sight of the Army**
Reuters had green-lit journalists to go to the area outside Almaa Shaab as prior to October 13, the area had not witnessed significant escalation and was not considered highly dangerous at the time. Reuters stated, "Issam was not in an active combat zone when he was hit. He and his colleagues were with journalists from other media outlets in an area far from active conflict." The Reuters team did not notify armed groups in that part of Lebanon, which include the Lebanese army, Hezbollah, and UN peacekeepers, or the Israeli army of their presence. None of these parties requested such notification.
Reuters commented, "It is not standard practice to inform armed parties of our reporters' exact locations. However, the Lebanese army requested journalists to obtain permission to work in southern Lebanon, so they were made aware of the names of our reporters operating in the general area." Nazih (53), a Reuters photographer based in Baghdad, stated they chose the site because it was on a hilltop in an open area without tree cover or buildings blocking journalists from nearby Israeli military positions. He added that they felt relatively safe because it was evident they were journalists and in sight of the Israeli army, both on the ground and in the air.
Nazih said, "In my assessment, we were in the safest places; we were comfortable, taking photos and laughing, not sensing any danger because we could never expect they would target journalists." This view was shared by AFP photographer Dylan Collins, 35, who was injured by shrapnel from the second strike. Collins remarked, "We weren't hiding among the trees or anything like that. It was very clear that we were seven journalists, evident by clear indicators, wearing press vests and helmets, with 'TV' on our vehicle, standing in an open area facing an Israeli military site perhaps two kilometers or one and a half kilometers from us, with multiple watchtowers to the west and east."
The first journalist to arrive at the scene was Ali Ahmed Rabah from the Qatari Al-Arabiya channel, which had been filming nearby alongside the Lebanese International Broadcasting Corporation. Al-Arabiya captured what happened next while reporters in shock tried to process what had occurred, now fully aware that Christina had sustained grave injuries and that Issam Abdullah had died. Nazih from Reuters expressed, "Issam cannot be brought back. Issam is gone. But he can hear us and see us waiting for us to offer him something, not something material. We expose those who shot and killed him to the world. They must acknowledge that they targeted him. That’s the only message we can send to Issam, which might bring him and his family some peace."
