Israeli tank strike killed ‘clearly identifiable’ Reuters reporter — UN report

Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah was killed in October 2023 while filming cross-border shelling from a distance in open area on a hill in south Lebanon. (X/File)
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Updated 14 March 2024
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Israeli tank strike killed ‘clearly identifiable’ Reuters reporter — UN report

  • UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) investigated Oct. 13 incident
  • UNIFIL report says two Israeli tank rounds hit reporters, in potential violation of international law

ISTANBUL: An Israeli tank killed Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah in Lebanon last year by firing two 120 mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation into the Oct. 13 incident has found.
The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the Israeli Merkava tank opened fire.
“The firing at civilians, in this instance clearly identifiable journalists, constitutes a violation of UNSCR 1701 (2006) and international law,” the UNIFIL report said, referring to Security Council resolution 1701.
The seven-page report dated Feb. 27 said further: “It is assessed that there was no exchange of fire across the Blue Line at the time of the incident. The reason for the strikes on the journalists is not known.”
Under resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to bring an end to the war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, UN peacekeepers were deployed to monitor a ceasefire along the 120 km (75 mile) demarcation line, or Blue Line, between Israel and Lebanon.
As part of their mission, UN troops record violations of the ceasefire and investigate the most egregious cases.
Besides killing Abdallah, the two tank rounds also wounded six other journalists at the scene.
Asked about the UNIFIL report, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Nir Dinar said Hezbollah had attacked the IDF near the Israeli community of Hanita on Oct. 13. It responded with artillery and tank fire to remove the threat and subsequently received a report that journalists had been injured.
“The IDF deplores any injury to uninvolved parties, and does not deliberately shoot at civilians, including journalists,” Dinar said. “The IDF considers the freedom of the press to be of utmost importance while clarifying that being in a war zone is dangerous.”
He said the General Staff’s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism, which is responsible for reviewing exceptional events, will continue to examine the incident.
According to the IDF’s website, the fact finding team submits its reviews to the Israeli military’s legal affairs department, which decides whether a case warrants a criminal investigation.

’MUST BE PROTECTED’
Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni has called on Israel to explain how the attack that killed Abdallah, 37, could have happened and to hold those responsible to account.
The UNIFIL report was sent to the United Nations in New York on Feb. 28 and has been shared with the Lebanese and Israeli militaries, two people familiar with the matter said.
“(The) IDF should conduct an investigation into the incident and a full review of their procedures at the time to avoid a recurrence,” the report said in its recommendations. “The IDF should share their investigation’s findings with UNIFIL.”
A UN spokesperson confirmed that the UNIFIL report had been shared with the parties.
“We reiterate that all actors should uphold their obligations under international law, and that civilians, including journalists, should never be a target. Journalists and media professionals must be protected,” the spokesperson said.
For its investigation, UNIFIL sent a team to visit the site on Oct. 14, and also received contributions from the Lebanese Armed Forces and from an unnamed witness who was present on the hill when the strikes occurred, the report said.
Details of incidents in UNIFIL’s area of operations are included in regular reports by the UN Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701. UNIFIL’s investigations, however, are not usually made public and Reuters was unable to determine if there would be any UN follow-up.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said he was not in a position to discuss the investigation.
UNIFIL’s findings lend further support to a Reuters investigation published on Dec. 7 that showed that seven journalists from Agence France-Presse, Al Jazeera and Reuters, were hit by two 120 mm rounds fired by a tank 1.34 km away in Israel.
The group of reporters had been filming cross-border shelling from a distance in open area on a hill near the Lebanese village of Alma Al-Chaab for nearly an hour before the attack.
The day afterwards, the IDF said it already had visuals of the incident and it was being investigated. The IDF has not published a report of its findings to date.
UNIFIL said in its report that it sent a letter and a questionnaire to the IDF requesting their assistance. The IDF replied with a letter but did not answer the questionnaire.
Reuters has not seen a copy of the IDF letter, the contents of which were summarized in the UNIFIL report.


Israel attacks kill 2 Gaza journalists in separate operations

Updated 08 May 2025
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Israel attacks kill 2 Gaza journalists in separate operations

  • Yahya Subaih died hours after posting photo of newborn daughter
  • Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was killed in separate attack

LONDON: Palestinian journalist Yahya Subaih was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on Wednesday, just hours after celebrating the birth of his daughter.

Subaih was among at least 11 people killed when Israeli warplanes struck a restaurant in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Dozens more were injured in the attack, according to local media reports.

Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was reportedly killed while covering an attack early on Wednesday morning at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.

That strike killed 16 people, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital, while strikes in other areas killed at least 16 others.

The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned what it described as the “systematic targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists,” and called on the international community to act.

In a statement, the office urged global powers “to put serious and effective pressure to stop the crime of genocide, protect journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip, and stop the crime of killing and assassinating them.”

Subaih, who worked with multiple media outlets, had shared a photo on social media just hours before his death, cradling his newborn daughter. “A little princess has brightened our world,” he wrote.

Footage circulating online shows Subaih wearing the same clothes he wore in the photo with his daughter.

His death adds to the growing number of media professionals killed in Gaza, which has become the most dangerous place in the world for journalists since Israel’s war on the enclave began on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the Costs of War project by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the current conflict is the deadliest ever recorded for journalists.

More than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began, with some estimates placing the figure as high as 214.

The overall death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has surpassed 52,000 people, most of them women and children, with more than 118,000 injured, according to the territory’s health authorities.


Renowned journalists receive prestigious MCF Awards in Dubai

Updated 08 May 2025
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Renowned journalists receive prestigious MCF Awards in Dubai

  • Recipients include Asharq’s Nabeel Alkhatib, MBC’s Ali Jaber, The National’s Mina Al-Oraibi and social program presenter Sarah Dundarawy
  • The MCF recognizes the work of Arab, international media figures

DUBAI: Renowned media figures Dr. Nabeel Alkhatib and Ali Jaber were among the recipients of the prestigious May Chidiac Foundation Media Awards during a ceremony held in Dubai’s Al-Habtoor City on Wednesday.

Alkhatib, general manager of Asharq News, received the Antoine Choueiri’s Special Tribute for Lifetime Achievement Award, while Jaber, chief content officer of MBC and Shahid, took the MCF Special Recognition for Pioneering Leadership in the Media Industry Award.

Mina Al-Oraibi, editor-in-chief of The National, took the Excellence in Media Award.

Sarah Dundarawy, Saudi Arabia journalist and presenter at Al Arabiya’s social program “tafa3olcom”, received the Outstanding Media Performance award.

In its third edition in Dubai, the MCF recognized the work of distinguished Arab and international media figures.

The Exceptional Courage in Journalism Award for Life Sacrifices went to the late Marie Colvin, an American war correspondent for the Sunday Times, who was killed while covering the siege of Homs in Syria in 2012.

Pascale Bourgaux, a war reporter, author and filmmaker, received the Engaged Journalist Award.

The Vision in Content Development Award went to the Dubai-based BLINX, the first digital-native storytelling hub in the Middle East and North Africa.

Founded by journalist and former Lebanese Minister for Administrative Development May Chidiac, the foundation is a nonprofit organization.

It is dedicated to research and development in various media fields, including international affairs, women’s rights, democracy and social welfare.

It is also aimed at establishing Lebanon as a proactive player in the Middle East and global economy.


Apple’s plan to offer AI search options on Safari a blow to Google dominance

Updated 08 May 2025
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Apple’s plan to offer AI search options on Safari a blow to Google dominance

  • Apple could add OpenAI, Perplexity as future search options
  • The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, wiping off roughly $150 billion from its market value

Apple’s plans to add AI-powered search options to its Safari browser are a big blow to Google, whose lucrative advertising business relies significantly on iPhone customers using its search engine.
The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, which closed down 7.3 percent, wiping off roughly $150 billion from its market value.
The iPhone maker was “actively looking at” reshaping Safari, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, citing Apple executive Eddy Cue who was offering testimony at an antitrust case on Wednesday over Google’s dominance in online search.
Cue said searches on Safari fell for the first time last month due to users increasingly turning to AI, according to the source. Apple stock closed down 1.1 percent.
Google said that it continued to see growth in the overall number of search queries, including “total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms,” according to a statement posted on the company’s blog.
“People are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries — and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways,” the company wrote.
Google cited voice and visual search features as contributors to total search volume growth. It was unclear whether Cue was using the same basis of comparison in his testimony when analizing types of searches.
Still, the Apple executive’s comments suggests that a seismic shift in search is likely underway, threatening Google’s dominant search business — a go-to advertising destination for marketers that has now become a target for US antitrust regulators, which filed two major lawsuits against the company.
Google is the default search engine on Apple’s browser, a coveted position for which it pays the iPhone maker roughly $20 billion a year, or about 36 percent of its search advertising revenue generated through the Safari browser, analysts have estimated.
Banning Google from paying companies to be the default search engine is among the remedies that the US Justice Department has proposed to break up its dominance in online search.
“The loss of exclusivity at Apple should have very severe consequences for Google even if there are no further measures,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.
“Many advertisers have all of their search advertising with Google because it is practically a monopoly with almost 90 percent share. If there were other viable alternatives for search, many advertisers could move much of their ad budgets away from Google,” Luria said.
Google is not defenseless.
Written off as an also-ran in the AI race by critics after ChatGPT’s buzzy launch in late 2022, Google has reached into its deep pockets to fund its AI efforts and leverage its vast data trove.
The company introduced an “AI mode” on its search page earlier this year, looking to retain its millions of users from going away to other AI models.
It recently expanded AI Overviews — summaries that appear atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages on a search query — for users in more than 100 countries, and added advertisements to feature, boosting Search ad sales.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in a testimony at an antitrust trial last month that Google hopes to enter an agreement with Apple by the middle of this year to include its Gemini AI technology on new phones.
Apple’s Cue on Wednesday also said the company would add AI search providers, including OpenAI and Perplexity AI, as search options in the future, Bloomberg reported.
“(Apple’s plan) also shows how far generative search sites, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity have come,” said Yory Wurmser, principal analyst for advertising, media & technology at eMarketer.
That Google is willing to pay tens of billions of dollars to remain the default search engine shows how crucial the agreements are, Wurmser said.
For instance, ChatGPT in April reported seeing over 1 billion weekly web searches for its search feature. It has more than 400 million weekly active users, as of February


Meta blocks access to Muslim news page in India

Updated 08 May 2025
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Meta blocks access to Muslim news page in India

  • The affected Instagram account, @Muslim, has a page with 6.7 million followers
  • Meta blocked the account by legal request of the Indian government, says founder

WASHINGTON: Meta has banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at the government’s request, the account’s founder said Wednesday, denouncing the move as “censorship” as hostilities escalate between India and Pakistan.
Instagram users in India trying to access posts from the handle @Muslim — a page with 6.7 million followers — were met with a message stating: “Account not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Indian government on the ban, which comes after access was blocked to the social media accounts of Pakistani actors and cricketers.
“I received hundreds of messages, emails and comments from our followers in India, that they cannot access our account,” Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh, the news account’s founder and editor-in-chief, said in a statement.
“Meta has blocked the @Muslim account by legal request of the Indian government. This is censorship.”
Meta declined to comment. A spokesman for the tech giant directed AFP to a company webpage outlining its policy for restricting content when governments believe material on its platforms goes “against local law.”
The development, first reported by the US tech journalist Taylor Lorenz’ outlet User Magazine, comes in the wake of the worst violence between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in two decades.
Both countries have exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival.
At least 43 deaths were reported in the fighting, which came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-run side of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
Pakistan rejects the charge and has warned it will “avenge” those killed by Indian air strikes.
The @Muslim account is among the most followed Muslim news sources on Instagram. Khatahtbeh apologized to followers in India, adding: “When platforms and countries try to silence media, it tells us that we are doing our job in holding those in power accountable.”
“We will continue to document the truth and stand out firmly for justice,” he added, while calling on Meta to reinstate the account in India.
India has also banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for allegedly spreading “provocative” content, including Pakistani news outlets.
In recent days, access to the Instagram account of Pakistan’s former prime minister and cricket captain Imran Khan has also been blocked in India.
Pakistani Bollywood movie regulars Fawad Khan and Atif Aslam were also off limits in India, as well as a wide range of cricketers — including star batters Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and retired players Shahid Afridi and Wasim Akram.
Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have also unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the Indian strikes.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump called for India and Pakistan to immediately halt their fighting, and offered to help end the violence.
 


Netflix announces major revamp of app homepage

Updated 07 May 2025
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Netflix announces major revamp of app homepage

  • Redesign features enhanced personalization and improved recommendations, as well as vertical videos on mobile devices

DUBAI: Streaming giant Netflix will begin rolling out a major revamp of its TV app’s homepage next week.

The new design “is simpler, more intuitive, and better represents the breadth of entertainment on Netflix today,” the company’s chief product officer, Eunice Kim, said on Tuesday.

It includes a navigation bar at the top of the screen, rather than the current position on the left, and more-responsive recommendations while a user browses the app.

Netflix’s chief technology officer Elizabeth Stone said that in making these recommendations the service “will pull in more signals,” such as search history and the trailers watched by a user.

“And because everything will happen seamlessly in the background, you won’t even notice it happening — it will just be magically easier to find something to watch,” she added.

The overall design will be more minimalist and cleaner, providing all the relevant information about a title in one place so as to reduce “eye gymnastics” and help users make an “informed choice,” Kim said.

The mobile app is also getting an overhaul, as Netflix tests the use of the favored video format on social media: vertical viewing. The vertical feed will feature clips from movies and TV shows that users can browse and then click on to visit to a title’s home page.

Netflix has previously used artificial intelligence technology across the platform for features such as recommendations but now, with advances in generative AI, it aims to go a step further by showcasing titles in more languages and including chatbot-like functionality.

For example, viewers can use conversational phrases such as “I want to watch something scary but not too scary” to search for content.

“Believe it or not, that search phrase will actually yield results in the new experience,” said Stone.

The company is also investing further in its content-delivery network, Open Connect, which optimizes streaming globally across differing internet speeds.

“Open Connect has given us a really strong foundation and now we’re building on that foundation as we deliver a broader and more complex variety of entertainment, including live events and games on TV,” Stone said.

“Entertaining the world is hard but technology makes it easier.”