On October 13, 2023, a hilltop near the Lebanese-Israeli border became the scene of a tragedy that continues to reverberate through international halls of power and press freedom circles. That day, a double-tap Israeli tank strike killed Reuters video reporter Issam Abdallah and wounded six other journalists, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg. Al Jazeera’s Carmen Joukhadar and Elie Brakhia were also injured. The group had gathered to livestream the escalating conflict, their press gear and vehicles clearly marked, hoping visibility would offer protection. Instead, it made them targets.
More than two years later, the questions remain painfully unresolved: Who ordered the strike? Why were journalists, so obviously identified, fired upon? And why has accountability proved so elusive? According to AFP, the attack was “well-documented in part because the journalists were livestreaming their reporting.” Israeli drones had circled above the journalists before the shells landed—two direct hits, 37 seconds apart. Collins recalled at a recent news conference, “The first strike killed Issam instantly and nearly blew Christina’s legs off her body. As I rushed to put a tourniquet on her, we were hit the second time, and I sustained multiple shrapnel wounds.”
The search for answers has become a rallying point for press freedom advocates and a handful of determined U.S. lawmakers. On December 11, 2025, Collins and his supporters—including Senators Peter Welch and Chris Van Hollen and Congresswoman Becca Balint, all representing Vermont—stood outside the U.S. Capitol to renew calls for a full investigation. “We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Welch insisted, as reported by AFP.
Yet, as Senator Welch lamented, “With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability. The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident.” He accused Israel of “stonewalling at every single turn,” and said he’d sent his seventh letter to the U.S. State Department demanding answers, only to be met with silence or vague reassurances. “The investigation, non-investigation—there’s nothing there,” Welch said, as quoted by Al Jazeera. “You’re basically getting the run-around, and you’re getting stonewalled. That’s the bottom line.”
According to Reuters and corroborated by independent investigations from AFP, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Reporters Without Borders, two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel. These findings directly contradict Israeli authorities’ claims that the shooting was unintentional and under review. In October 2023, the Israeli army told AFP that the attack was still “under review,” an apparent contradiction to Welch’s assertion that the Israeli probe was closed.
One of the most striking aspects of this case is the lack of engagement with survivors. Welch noted that Israel never contacted Collins or other survivors for their testimony. “I want to know who pulled the trigger; I want to know what command structure approved it, and I want to know why it’s gone unaddressed until today—on our strike and all the others targeted,” Collins said, echoing the frustration of many journalists and advocates. “But I’d also like [the U.S. government] to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account.”
The U.S. response has been tepid at best. Despite the wounding of an American citizen, neither the Biden nor the Trump administrations have publicly acknowledged the attack or taken meaningful steps toward accountability. “I thought that when an American citizen is wounded in an attack carried out by the U.S.’s greatest ally in the Middle East that we would be able to get some answers. But for two years, I’ve been met by deafening silence,” Collins said. Senator Van Hollen was equally blunt: “We have not seen accountability or justice in this case, and the State Department—our own government—has not done much of anything really to pursue justice in this case. It is part of a broader pattern of impunity for attacks on Americans and on journalists by the government of Israel.” He called the U.S. approach a “dereliction of duty.”
Amelia Evans, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, argued that Israel’s “purported investigative bodies are not functioning to deliver justice but to shield Israeli forces from accountability.” She urged the U.S. to demand a full accounting, including the identification of all military officials involved in the chain of command for both the 2023 strike and the 2022 killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh. Former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller acknowledged the lack of progress, stating, “We are many months into those investigations. And we’re not seeing Israeli soldiers held accountable.”
The October 2023 attack has had a chilling effect on coverage of the conflict. Collins described how the loss of Issam Abdallah, “the dynamo of the press scene in Lebanon,” deeply affected the journalistic community. “He was always the first person to help you out if you’re in a jam. He had a larger-than-life personality.” The trauma, Collins said, discouraged reporting from the front lines as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalated into a full-blown war in September 2024. Israeli forces devastated nearly all border towns in Lebanon, and even after a ceasefire in November 2024, the military continued near-daily attacks, preventing reconstruction and maintaining a climate of fear.
The context is grim. According to Al Jazeera, Israel has a long history of killing journalists without accountability. Over the past decade, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least ten U.S. citizens, including Shireen Abu Akleh. The country’s use of “double-tap” strikes—repeated attacks on the same target—has become more common, especially in Gaza. UN rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz called the 2023 strike “a premeditated, targeted and double-tapped attack from the Israeli forces, a clear violation, in my opinion, of IHL (international humanitarian law), a war crime.”
For now, the families of the victims and their colleagues wait. As Congresswoman Becca Balint put it, “We’re not letting it go. It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us. We’re not letting it go.” The demand for answers—and for justice—remains unyielding, even as the world’s attention shifts and the violence grinds on. In the words of Collins, “If the intention was to stop people from covering the war, then it has worked to some degree.” But for those who believe in the power and necessity of a free press, the fight for accountability is far from over.
