WASHINGTON, D.C. – American journalist Dylan Collins wants to know “who pulled the trigger” in the 2023 killing of Reuters video reporter Issam Abdallah, who was wounded in the Israeli Double Tap attack in southern Lebanon.
Collins and his supporters are also seeking information about the military orders that led to the deadly attack. But more than two years later, Israel still has not provided a proper answer as to why it targeted a clearly identified reporter.
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Press freedom advocates and three U.S. lawmakers joined former Al Jazeera reporter Collins at AFP outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to renew their calls for accountability for the incident and Israel’s killing of more than 250 other journalists.
“I want to know who pulled the trigger. I want to know what chain of command authorized it. And I want to know why this issue has been left unaddressed to this day, about our attacks and all the other targets,” Collins said.
Sen. Peter Welch, Becca Balint, and Chris Van Hollen, who represent Collins’ home state of Vermont, stressed Thursday that they will continue to hold accountable those responsible for the strike that left six journalists injured.
“We’re not going to let it go. It doesn’t matter how long they block us. We’re not going to let it go,” Balint told reporters.
attack
Welch said he has sent a seventh letter to the U.S. State Department accusing Israel of obfuscation and demanding answers.
He said Israeli authorities investigated the attack and said they determined the shooting was unintentional, but provided no evidence they had questioned the soldiers. Israel also had no contact with key witnesses, including Collins and other survivors of the attack.
In October, the Israeli military told AFP news agency that the attack was still “under consideration,” an apparent contradiction to what Welch said.
“There’s nothing there, whether it’s an investigation or something that hasn’t been investigated,” Welch said. “You’re basically being run away from or thwarted. That’s the bottom line.”
Israel received more than $21 billion in military aid from the United States during the two-year genocidal war in Gaza.
During the war, Israel has stepped up attacks on the press. But this country has a long history of killing journalists with impunity.
The strike on October 13, 2023, which left Al Jazeera’s Carmen Jukadar and Elie Blachia injured, and AFP’s Cristina Assi with life-changing injuries, was well-documented, with journalists live-streaming their coverage.
The correspondents had set up equipment on a hilltop near the Lebanon-Israel border to cover the escalation on the front line, and were in clearly marked news equipment and vehicles.
An Israeli drone was also circling over the journalist before the attack.
“We thought the fact that we were visible was a good thing and would protect us, but after a little less than an hour on the scene, we were hit by tank fire twice. Two shells hitting the same target, 37 seconds apart,” Collins said at a news conference Thursday.
“The first blow killed Isamu instantly and almost knocked Christina’s legs off her body. As I quickly applied a tourniquet on her, a second blow left me with multiple shrapnel wounds.”
The AFP reporter added that while the attack at the time seemed “unfathomable in its brutality”, “we have since witnessed the same type of attack repeated dozens of times.”
Israel regularly carries out such double-tap attacks, including other attacks against journalists in the Gaza Strip.
“This did not happen in the fog of war. This was a war crime committed in broad daylight and broadcast on live television,” Collins said.
Earlier this year, UN Rapporteur Morris Tidball-Bintz said the 2023 attack was a “premeditated, targeted double-tap attack by the Israeli military and, in my opinion, a clear violation of IHL (International Humanitarian Law) and a war crime.”
US reaction
Despite the attack injuring Americans, then-President Joe Biden’s administration, which claimed to champion press freedom and “rules-based order,” did little to hold Israel accountable.
Biden’s successor, Donald Trump, also pushed for unconditional U.S. support for Israel.
On Thursday, Collins said he had contacted officials in Washington, D.C., to show them footage of the airstrike and criticized the U.S. government’s inaction.
“We thought an attack by America’s largest ally in the Middle East, injuring an American citizen, would give us some answers. But for two years, we have been met with deafening silence,” he told reporters.
“In fact, neither the Biden nor Trump administrations have publicly acknowledged that any American citizens were injured in this attack.”
Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 10 Americans over the past decade, including Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akre.
Sen. Van Hollen said accountability in the October 13, 2023 attacks is important to journalists around the world and the American people.
“We have no accountability, no justice in this case, and the State Department, our government, has actually done very little to pursue justice in this case,” Van Hollen told reporters.
“This is part of a broader pattern of impunity for attacks against Americans and journalists by the Israeli government.”
He called the US approach a “dereliction of duty” by the Trump and Biden administrations.
Israeli “investigation”
Amelia Evans, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said Sen. Welch’s account of the Israel investigation shows that the country’s “professed investigative agencies are not working to deliver justice, but to protect the accountability of the Israeli military.”
Evans urged the Trump administration to “take action” and called for the completion of investigations into the killing of Abu Akre in 2022 and the attack on journalists in Lebanon in 2023.
“We must demand from Israel the names of all military personnel across the chain of command involved in both incidents,” she said.
“But as a key strategic ally of Israel, the United States must do more than that. It must publicly acknowledge that Israel is not properly investigating war crimes by its military.”
Israel often insists on investigations in response to abuses.
Former State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who spent nearly two years defending Israel’s war crimes and justifying Washington’s unflinching support for its allies in the Middle East, recently acknowledged that tactic.
“I am aware that Israel has launched an investigation,” Miller, who has constantly raised allegations of an Israeli investigation from the State Department podium, said in June.
“But look, we’ve been doing these investigations for months, and we’re not seeing Israeli soldiers being held responsible.”
“Cooling effect”
Amid growing calls for justice, Collins paid tribute to his colleague Abdallah, who was killed in the 2023 attack on Israel.
“Losing Issam was difficult for everyone,” he told Al Jazeera. “He was a dynamo in the Lebanese press. He knew everyone. He was always the first to help in times of need. He was an extraordinary personality.”
Collins added that Abdullah’s killing had a “chilling effect” on coverage of the conflict, which escalated to full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah in September 2024.
In the violence, Israel destroyed almost all of Lebanon’s border towns.
Even after a ceasefire was established in November last year, Israeli forces continue to block the reconstruction of destroyed villages. almost every day Attacks all over the country.
“If the goal was to prevent people from reporting on the war, it worked to some extent,” Collins said.
