Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah laid to rest after being killed by Israeli gunfire that also wounded six others in Lebanon
Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was laid to rest today in his hometown in Lebanon after he was killed by Israeli shelling that also wounded six others.
Draped in a Lebanese flag, his body was carried on a stretcher through the streets of his southern town of Khiam, from his family home to the local cemetery.
Dozens of journalists and Lebanese politicians attended the funeral.
Mr Abdallah was killed near the town of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon on Friday night when an Israeli grenade landed on a gathering of international journalists covering border fire exchanges between Israeli troops and members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry asked Beirut’s mission to the United Nations to lodge a complaint against Israel over Friday’s shooting, calling it a “flagrant violation and a crime against freedom of opinion and press.”
Issam Abdallah, a Reuters journalist, was laid to rest today in his hometown in Lebanon
Dozens of journalists and Lebanese politicians attended his funeral in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam today
The statement was carried by the state-run National News Agency.
Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, said today: ‘We are aware of the incident with the Reuters journalist and we are looking into it.’
Hecht did not confirm that the journalists were hit by Israeli shells, but called the incident ‘tragic’, adding: ‘we are very sorry for his death.’
Reuters said in a statement that two of its journalists, Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, were wounded in the same bombing, while Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV said its cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar were also wounded.
France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, said two of its journalists were also wounded: photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins.
Mr Abdallah’s body was carried aloft in a funeral procession attended by hundreds of people
Mr Abdallah was killed near the town of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon on Friday evening when an Israeli shell landed on a gathering of international journalists.
AFP reported on Saturday that photographer Christina Assi is in need of blood donations at the American University Medical Center in Beirut where she is hospitalized.
The Lebanon-Israel border has witnessed sporadic acts of violence since Saturday’s surprise attack by the militant Palestinian group Hamas on southern Israel.
Journalists from several countries flocked to Lebanon to monitor the situation as tensions between Hezbollah and Israel escalated.
A journalist’s car burns at the site where Mr Abdallah was killed in an airstrike