Lebanon | No exchange of fire during deadly October 13 strikes, UN says

(Beirut) A UN investigation, consulted Thursday by AFP, indicates that there were no exchanges of fire on the Israeli-Lebanese border when an Israeli tank fired on October 13, killing a Reuters reporter and injuring six other journalists, including two from AFP.

According to the conclusions of the investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, handed over to the Lebanese and Israeli authorities, “the Israeli army fired two 120 mm shells from a Merkava tank” that day in the direction of journalists.

She emphasizes that “there were no exchanges of fire across the Blue Line”, which marks the border between Lebanon and Israel, at that time, believing that the reason for the strikes targeting journalists is not known.

“The shooting of civilians, in this case clearly identifiable journalists, constitutes a violation of resolution 1701 (…) and international law,” according to the report.

The investigation indicates that exchanges of fire on both sides of the Blue Line were reported before the strike against the journalists.

Issam Abdallah was killed and six other journalists injured, including two from the AFP, Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.

The reporters had gone to cover daily cross-border clashes in southern Lebanon since October 8 between the Israeli army on the one hand and the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah and other armed groups on the other.

Hezbollah says it acts in support of Palestinian Hamas, whose unprecedented attack on October 7 in Israel sparked a war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

The AFP investigation, carried out with the British collective of experts and independent investigators Airwars, concluded in early December that a 120 mm tank shell stabilized by fins, exclusively used by the Israeli army in the region, was at the origin of the strike.

Two other investigations carried out separately by the human rights organizations Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International both also designated “Israeli strikes”.

At the beginning of March, an analysis carried out for Reuters by the laboratory of the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) concluded that the Israeli tank, from which two shell shots killed Issam Abdallah, had probably opened fire in a second phase on the group, with a heavy machine gun.

The Israeli army denied on March 8 that it was “deliberately” targeting journalists.

It said its tanks and artillery guns opened fire on October 13 in response to Hezbollah anti-tank missile, rocket and mortar fire “in order to eliminate the threat”, adding that the investigation into this drama continued.