10/13/2023-|Last update: 10/13/202310:47 PM (Mecca time)
Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the new Israeli attack on the press, which targeted Al Jazeera staff and international media.
Today, Friday, a photojournalist was martyred and 3 others were injured – including an Al Jazeera reporter and photographer – in an Israeli bombing on their car in Alma Al-Shaab, southern Lebanon.
The network added in a statement that it offers its condolences to the journalist family around the world and the families of the martyr journalist Issam Abdullah, and wishes a speedy recovery to all the wounded.
Al Jazeera held Israel fully legally and morally responsible for this brutal attack, and also called on the international community to take action to ensure the safety of journalists and hold accountable everyone behind this criminal act that will not succeed in terrorizing its crews.
The Lebanese Journalists Syndicate condemned the Israeli attack on journalists in southern Lebanon, stressing that it is a crime that amounts to war crimes.
A Lebanese security source confirmed to Al Jazeera’s correspondent that it was an Israeli Apache plane that targeted the journalists with a guided missile in Alma al-Shaab.
Director of Al Jazeera’s office in Lebanon, Mazen Ibrahim, said that Reuters photographer Issam Abdullah was martyred, while Al Jazeera network colleagues Carmen Joukhadar and Eli Brakhia were taken to the hospital after being injured in an Israeli bombing on press crew cars in Alma al-Shaab.
The journalist was injured @CarmenJoukhadar And channel team @AJABreaking As a result of their car being targeted by a missile while they were covering events in #South Lebanon pic.twitter.com/Z6CvQGRlQF
– Yahya Alhadid (@YahyaAlhadid) October 13, 2023
Ibrahim added that Al-Jazeera’s car was completely burned after being targeted by a direct missile.
He stated that the journalists were on a hill to monitor events in southern Lebanon and were placing signs to identify them as journalists, and they were not close to any military site affiliated with the Lebanese Army or Hezbollah.
For its part, Reuters said in a statement, “With great sadness, we have been informed that our photographer, Issam Abdullah, has been killed,” noting that he was a member of the Reuters team in southern Lebanon.
The American position
In the first international reaction, White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton told reporters that US President Joe Biden’s prayers are with the family of the Reuters photographer who was killed while working in southern Lebanon.
Dalton added, “We know that the work you are all doing is very dangerous, and today is a reminder of that,” and the American spokeswoman avoided directing any blame or condemnation to Israel.
In turn, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told reporters that Israel will investigate what happened in southern Lebanon.
He added, “But as you know, we are in a state of war, and things may happen that we regret, and we will investigate the matter. It is too early now to know what happened there.”
Lebanese condemnation
In turn, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the targeting of journalists, saying that “the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of journalists is a new disgrace added to those forces’ record of killing and aggression.”
Yesterday evening, Thursday, Mikati asked his country’s Foreign Minister, Abdullah Bu Habib, to submit an urgent complaint against Israel to the UN Security Council against the backdrop of its “repeated attacks against Lebanon.”
The tensions on the Lebanese border come as the Israeli army continues, for the seventh day in a row, to target the Gaza Strip, which has been besieged since 2006, with intense air strikes that destroyed entire neighborhoods and left thousands dead and wounded among Palestinian civilians.
At dawn last Saturday, Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza launched Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” in response to the continuing attacks by Israeli forces and settlers on the Palestinian people, their property and sanctities, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque.
#Jazeera #condemns #Israels #targeting #journalists #southern #Lebanon
2023-10-13 19:51:53
