New York, October 13, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Friday shelling in southern Lebanon from the direction of Israel that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured six other journalists.
Those wounded include two other Reuters journalists, Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, two Al-Jazeera TV staffers, Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and Agence France-Press journalists Christina Assi and Dylan Collins.
The journalists were covering the back-and-forth shelling near Alma Al-Chaab between Israel Defense Forces and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group.
“Journalists are making great sacrifices across the region to cover this important conflict,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “All parties should recognize that they are civilians and take measures to ensure their safety.”
Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, CPJ has documented dozens of killed journalists and is investigating additional reports of journalists killed, injured, and reported missing as the conflict widened to neighboring Lebanon and Israeli troops launched ground raids into the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Editor’s note: The direction of the shelling, the total number of injured in the southern Lebanon attack, the names of injured journalists Christina Assi and Dylan Collins, the spelling of Alma Al-Chaab, and the total number of journalists killed since the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict have been updated in the first, second, third, and fifth paragraphs.