Israel denies targeting journalists after report on tank fire
The Israeli military on Friday denied it targets reporters after an expert report gave further details of a tank crew opening fire and killing a journalist and wounding others in Lebanon last year.
The military said it "does not deliberately shoot at civilians, including journalists" after a probe by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) found troops "likely" opened fire on the journalists with a machine gun after deadly shelling.
The strike in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border on October 13 instantly killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah.
Six other journalists from Reuters, Al Jazeera and AFP were injured. One of them, AFP photographer Christina Assi, 28, later had a leg amputated.
An AFP investigation in December pointed to a tank shell only used by the Israeli army being fired in the attack.
And a separate Reuters probe, including initial findings from the TNO, found two Israeli tank rounds fired from the same position across the border were used.
In its final report on Thursday, the TNO said analysis of audio picked up by an Al Jazeera video camera at the scene showed the reporters also came under fire from 0.50-calibre rounds of the type used by the Browning machine guns that can be mounted on Israel's Merkava tanks.
"It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists," it said.
"The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of (the machine gun) fire could not be established."
The Israeli military said Friday that troops responded to attacks by Hezbollah militants, using "artillery fire and tank fire in order to remove the threat".
In a statement to AFP, the military said "a report of the injury of journalists who were in the area was received" after the fire by Israeli troops.
The "incident will continue to be examined" by a military body, the statement said.
The Israeli military said it "considers the freedom of the press to be of utmost importance while clarifying that being in a war zone is dangerous."
Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also concluded that the first strike in southern Lebanon was most likely a tank round fired from Israel.
They said the journalists had been clearly marked as such, and that the deadly strike merited a "war crimes" probe.
Source: Agence France Presse
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