Paris (France) (AFP) – Agence France-Presse on Friday demanded “precise and detailed responses” from Israel, whose ambassador to France described as an “error” the attack by the Israeli army on journalists two years ago in southern Lebanon, which killed a Reuters journalist and injured others, including two from AFP.
Published on: 05/06/2026 - 23:41
"The AFP demands precise and detailed answers on what you admit to being an 'error'," wrote its information director, Phil Chetwynd, in a letter addressed Friday to the Israeli ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka.
On October 13, 2023, a strike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured six other reporters, including two from AFP, Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had her right leg amputated.
In the program "Complément d'investigation" broadcast Thursday evening on France Télévisions, the diplomat recognizes that the Israeli army made an "error" by hitting these reporters, who according to him "were not targeted because they were journalists" but because "the soldiers on the spot thought they were terrorists".
“These statements constitute, in our eyes, the first public acknowledgment by an official Israeli representative that the two shootings targeting a group of clearly identified journalists were carried out by Israeli forces,” underlines Phil Chetwynd.
An independent investigation by AFP concluded that two shots from Israeli 120mm tank shells came from the Jordeikh area in northern Israel, bordering southern Lebanon.
These findings have been corroborated by other international investigations, including those of Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
“Why was the position that you expressed publicly never communicated directly to the AFP in response to its formal requests?”, the agency's information director asks in his letter.
Reacting to the ambassador's assertion that Israel discovered vests marked "PRESS" in Hamas and Hezbollah tunnels, to justify the shooting error, Phil Chetwynd believes that "this argument in no way exonerates the Israeli army", which "hit a group of seven clearly identified journalists after prolonged aerial surveillance of the area".
Finally, despite the public recognition of an "error", "the Israeli army has to date made no formal acknowledgment of its responsibility to the AFP, Dylan Collins, or Christina Assi", deplores Mr. Chetwynd, asking "what Israel intends to do to bring justice and reparation to the journalists who were victims of the shootings".
“The explanation given by the Israeli ambassador to France does not answer the central question posed by what amounts to a war crime: why did Israeli forces repeatedly beat a group of journalists clearly identified as such,” responded Friday the regional director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Sara Qudah, asking that “all the evidence demonstrating that Israeli soldiers incorrectly identified the journalists” be made public.
© 2026 AFP
The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.
