Israeli shelling and 'likely' gunfire killed journalist in Lebanon: report

An Israeli tank crew killed a Reuters reporter in Lebanon in October by firing two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then "likely" opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds, according to a report into the incident.

The report published on Thursday by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) - which was contracted by Reuters to analyse evidence from the Oct. 13 attack that killed visuals journalist Issam Abdallah - found that a tank 1.34 km away in Israel fired two 120 mm rounds at the reporters.

The first shell killed Abdallah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28.

A Reuters investigation in December covered TNO's preliminary finding that a tank in Israel had fired at the journalists. In its final report on Thursday, the institute revealed that 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," TNO's report said. "The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of (the machine gun) fire could not be established."

Reuters could not independently determine if the Israeli tank crew knew it was firing on journalists, nor whether it also shot at them with a machine gun and, if so, why.

Neither of the two surviving Reuters reporters or another AFP journalist at the scene remembered the machine gunfire. All said they were in shock at the time.

'Deliberate attack'

International humanitarian law bars attacks on journalists as those in the news media have the full scope of protection granted to civilians and cannot be considered military targets.

"If reports of sustained machine gunfire are confirmed, this would add more weight to the theory this was a targeted and deliberate attack," he said.

Ihtisham Hibatullah, Al Jazeera's manager of international communications, urged the Israeli government to disclose the findings of its own investigation.

TNO noted that the seven journalists were wearing blue flak jackets and helmets, most with "PRESS" written on them in white letters. They had been filming cross-border shelling from a distance in an open area on a hill near the Lebanese village of Alma al-Chaab for nearly an hour before the attack.

Video footage of the aftermath of the attack also showed a black car belonging to Reuters marked "TV" in large yellow letters made out of tape on both the hood and the roof.

TNO said there was a clear line of sight from where the tank rounds were fired to the scene of the attack. In the live TV feeds ahead of the attack, one or more drones can be heard and an Israeli helicopter was also visible overhead in some footage.

The institute was able to determine exactly where the two tank rounds came from because it had video of the second round's muzzle blast and flight, in addition to audio files recorded at the scene of the incident.

Reuters photographer Thaier Al-Sudani, 47 cameraman Maher Nazeh, 53, as well as two journalists from Al Jazeera and another from AFP were also wounded in the attack.

The day after the attack, Israel's military said it had visuals of the incident and it was being investigated. No results have been made public.