Funeral held for Reuters journalist killed in Lebanon
STORY: Family members, friends and colleagues bid farewell to Abdallah, whose body was wrapped in the Lebanese flag and carried along the streets of his hometown in Lebanon.
Abdallah was killed on Friday (October 13) while working with other journalists near the village of Alma al-Shaab, close to the Israeli border, where the Israeli military and Lebanese militia Hezbollah have been trading fire.
Abdallah was with two other Reuters journalists, Maher Nazeh and Thaer Al-Sudani, as well as journalists from media groups Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse when he was killed while providing a live video signal for broadcasters.
Nazeh and Al-Sudani said they were filming missile fire coming from the direction of Israel when one struck Abdallah as he was sitting on a low stone wall near the rest of the group. Seconds later, another missile hit the car being used by the group, setting it aflame.
Nazeh and Al-Sudani, who were both injured in the incident but were later released from hospital, attended Saturday’s funeral service.
Lebanon said it would submit a formal complaint to the UN Security Council on "Israel's deliberate killing" of Abdallah, state media reported.
"The Israeli enemy launched a missile which hit a civilian car belonging to a media group which led to the martyrdom of the videographer Issam Abdallah," the army high command said in a statement posted on its website.
The statement did not provide any further details to support their claims.
The Israeli army said on Saturday it was investigating the incident in which Abdallah was killed.
While other news outlets, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, said the shells were Israeli, Reuters could not establish whether the missiles had actually been fired by Israel.
