Cameraman Killed as Al-Jadeed Crew Comes Under Gunfire from Syria
Al-Jadeed TV cameraman Ali Shaaban was killed on Monday in the northern border area of Wadi Khaled when he and two of his colleagues came under gunfire from the Syrian side of the border.
Reporter Hussein Khreis and cameraman Abed Khayyat managed to escape unharmed.
The TV network said the crew was in the area with the aim of filming a report about the situation there.
Shaaban was rushed to Al-Salam Hospital in al-Qbayyat where he later died of his wounds.
Khreis confirmed that he and his colleagues came under gunfire from the Syrian side of the border and that they were inside Lebanese territory.
Al-Jadeed accused the Syrian army of the deadly shooting, saying it opened fire at its team which was on the Lebanese side of the border.
"Ali Shaaban became a martyr after the Syrian army opened fire on the al-Jadeed car," the channel said.
Khreis said the shooting took place even though the television team had "greeted the Syrian forces guarding the border."
“We were filming the Syrian areas, but we were in Lebanese territory, and we chatted with the Syrian brothers (border guards) and continued our trip,” said Khreis.
“We started to crawl but they opened heavy gunfire at the car … Bullets were raining down,” Khreis added.
“We watched cameraman Ali Shaaban dying in the car and we were not able to pull him out,” he said.
Khreis said Lebanese security forces did not warn them that they were entering a “danger zone.”
"If you see the car you would think it was in a war zone," Khreis said on al-Jadeed. "It is completely destroyed from the bullets."
He said they waited for more than two hours for the army and some residents to come and pull them out to safety.
"I ask forgiveness from Ali's family because I couldn't do anything for him," he said, breaking into tears.
Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press that a bullet pierced the chest of the 32-year-old Shaaban.
Gunfire came from the nearby Syrian village of Armouta, the officials said.
NBN television quoted a Syrian source as saying that Syrian authorities were investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA quoted a “media source” as saying that al-Jadeed’s crew were “in a border area witnessing frequent and daily infiltration attempts by armed men, as well as shootings by armed terrorist groups against the checkpoints of the border guards inside Syrian territory.”
The source said “a Syrian border guard checkpoint in the aforementioned area came under heavy gunfire from armed terrorist groups trying to infiltrate the border, apparently during the presence of al-Jadeed TV’s crew in the area.”
“Border guards fired back at the source of gunfire,” the media source told SANA, extending his condolences to Shaaban’s family, employer and colleagues.
Source: Naharnet
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