On a clear day in southern Lebanon on Oct. 13, near the border with Israel, a group of journalists from Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Al Jazeera gathered at the top of an exposed hilltop. They went there to film, from a distance, cross-border shelling by the Israeli military.
They wanted to be seen, unmistakably, as journalists: they wore well-marked press vests, heard drones buzz overhead and saw an Israeli helicopter patrol high above them.
And then an Israeli tank crew fired on them, twice.
The attack killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, 37, and wounded six other journalists, one of them severely, AFP’s Christina Assi.
Reuters spoke to more than 30 government and security officials, military experts, forensic investigators, lawyers, medics and witnesses to piece together a detailed account of the incident. It also engaged the Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, an independent Dutch institution, to forensically examine the material that Reuters gathered at the scene.
