by middleeasteye.net

A small group of Democratic lawmakers, alongside the Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International, called on Israel and the Trump administration on Thursday to carry out a full and independent investigation into the first alleged targeting of journalists by Israel as it launched its wars on Gaza and Lebanon after 7 October 2023. 

Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah had been covering clashes between the Israeli military and the Lebanese group Hezbollah near the Israel-Lebanon frontier on 13 October 2023 when he was killed. 

Identifiable as members of the media, he and a group of reporters with him had been stationary for around 75 minutes before they were hit by two shells, which eyewitnesses at the scene said came from Israel. 

Two other Reuters journalists, Thaer al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh; two Al Jazeera TV staffers, Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar; and two AFP journalists, Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, were wounded in the attack. 

Assi had to have a leg amputated, Collins, who flew in from Lebanon, told reporters outside the US Capitol on Thursday. 

As a US citizen, he said he'd approached both the Biden and Trump administrations to get answers and transparency, but was met with "deafening silence". 

Neither of them had "ever publicly acknowledged that a US citizen was wounded in this attack", he said, explaining that he'd sustained shrapnel wounds. 

"For two years, I've made trips to the Capitol. I've met with lawmakers. I've met with the State Department. I've met with the FBI. I've sat down and showed them the raw footage. I've handed them physical copies of the investigations. As an American, I thought I'd find support. I thought my government would fight for me," Collins said.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/deafening-silence-us-journalist-wounded-israel-says-his-government-has-done-nothing