Lebanon said on Saturday that Israel was behind cross-border fire that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others near the border the previous day.
Israel’s military said it was looking into the circumstances of the fatal strike Friday which also injured journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera.
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“We are very sorry for the journalist’s death,” military spokesman Richard Hecht told a briefing in reference to the Reuters video journalist killed, Issam Abdallah.
On the question of who launched the strike, Hecht said that “we are looking into it”.
The Lebanese army said in a statement that “the Israeli enemy fired a rocket shell that hit a civilian car belonging to a media team, leading to the death of Issam Abdallah”.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry also blamed Israel and labelled the strike a “deliberate killing” and a “crime against freedom of speech and journalism”.
The group of journalists from different media, wearing press vests and helmets, was near the village of Alma al-Shaab, close to the border with Israel, when they came under “direct” fire, according to two eyewitnesses.
The border has been rocked by violence since Palestinian Islamist group Hamas killed 1,300 in its October 7 attack on Israel, sparking retaliatory bombing of Gaza that has killed 1,900 there.
Israel has massed forces and tanks along the northern border with Lebanon, a country with which it remains technically at war, and where the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has a heavy presence.
