According to the report published on Thursday by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), 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 large-calibre machine gun, TRT World reported.
Reuters contracted TNO to analyse evidence of the October 13 attack that killed journalist Issam Abdallah. The report found that a tank located 1.34 kilometres away in Israel fired two 120-millimetre shells at the reporters. The first shell killed Abdallah, 37, and seriously wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28.
Sound recorded by an Al Jazeera video camera at the scene revealed that the reporters were also hit by 0.50 calibre rounds. Such ammunition can be found in the Browning machine guns that are fitted to Israeli 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. The latter cannot be concluded with certainty as the direction and exact distance of [the machine gun] fire could not be established.”
None of the two surviving Reuters reporters or another AFP journalist at the scene remembered machine gun fire. All reported being in a state of shock at the time.
TNO noted that the seven journalists were wearing blue body armour and helmets, most with “PRESS” written in white letters. The institute was able to determine the exact location from which the two tank shells were fired, as it possessed video footage of the muzzle blast and flight of the second shell, as well as audio files recorded at the scene.
Reuters photographer Thaier Al-Sudani, 47, and cameraman Maher Nazeh, 53, were also wounded in the attack, as well as two Al Jazeera journalists and another AFP correspondent.
