'I will go back behind the camera': Christina Assi's fight for justice over Israeli attack

Photojournalist tells The National about her struggle after air strike that killed her friend and cost her a leg

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With a smile and a disarming frankness, Christina Assi welcomes us into her family house in Rabieh, a few kilometres north of Beirut.

As a photographer, she guides us with ease through lighting, setting up and even her best angles.

“I try hard not to give my opinion too much when journalists come for interviews,” she says with a smile.

Her friends had told us of her sense of humour. “She will make you laugh,” they said.

It is clear her wit has remained intact despite the tragedy that turned her life upside down on October 13, 2023, when an Israeli tank targeted the Agence France-Presse photojournalist and colleagues from other news agencies as they covered cross-border shelling in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli strikes killed her best friend, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, and severely injured Assi, along with five other journalists. The 28-year-old later had to have her right leg amputated.

Photography has long been Assi’s passion. She began working as a photo editor for AFP in Cyprus in 2018, soon after graduating in journalism from Notre Dame University in Lebanon.

War journalism has always fascinated her. Growing up in chaotic 1990s Lebanon, in the aftermath of a civil war, made her familiar with constant instability – and fuelled her drive to cover conflicts.

Her family moved to Doha in 2005, but when they returned the following year for a holiday in southern Lebanon – where her father is from – Assi experienced war first-hand as her family fled under shelling through the Syrian border.

This is why, when the border fighting broke out on October 8 between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel following Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, she felt compelled to document it. Two days later, she was deployed to Lebanon from Cyprus.

“I was obsessed with covering war zones. It has always been my dream. Even now, I still feel: why am I not there covering [it]?” she says.

She hopes to do so again after her final major operation this month – she has already had 23 – paves the way for her to start using a prosthetic limb.

“Once I stand up and I can walk again, I'm going back to covering and taking pictures, that's the main goal,” she says.

Struggles

Ms Assi has continued taking photos and videos of her post-injury journey, hoping to make a documentary to show her journey and honour the memory of Mr Abdallah.

Beneath her strength lies a deep struggle. She openly talks about being “sick” of feeling stuck on the wheelchair.

Ms Assi left the hospital in March after being bedridden for months. Since then, she has been following a rehabilitation programme in a country with very few resources and infrastructure for people with such injuries.

“I had to figure out everything by myself,” she says.

But the recovery is not only physical. When asked how she is coping mentally with her traumatic experience, Ms Assi simply says she isn't. “I don't feel anything any more,” she replies.

Yet, she has been extremely active in recent months, giving interviews, advocating for the protection of journalists, and even carrying the Olympic flame in Paris to honour journalists wounded and killed in the field. But it is not for her, she says. It is for Mr Abadallah and for all journalists who have been “failed” by international law.

The findings of investigations led by news organisations and human rights groups are clear: Israel was responsible for the attack, which Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have labelled a “war crime”.

Ms Assi recalls the day being calm until the afternoon when they heard reports of shelling in Alma Chaab near the border with Israel. Ms Assi, her AFP colleague Dylan Collins and Mr Abdallah – whom she had met years earlier during an internship at Reuters – went to the scene. There they encountered an Al Jazeera crew, all clearly marked as press.

The last thing she did before the attack was take a selfie with the sunset to send to her mother. Mr Abdallah, who was right next to her, took the brunt of the impact. He was killed instantly.

She was thrown to the ground. What she remembers is an intense pain and Mr Collins rushing to apply a tourniquet before they were struck a second time.

“Then, everything disappeared,” she said. The second strike hit the Al Jazeera car next to her. “I thought I was going to burn as well.” As her colleague dragged her away from the car, she says her first thought was of her camera. She was taken to an ambulance and lost consciousness soon after.

“I’m not sure how we survived,” she says.

Fight for justice

What happened that day has been thoroughly documented. But justice is yet to come.

“[The Lebanese government] said it would investigate, but so far we haven't heard anything,” Ms Assi says.

It has moved even further away from accountability, reversing a move to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes on its soil.

The move could have given the ICC jurisdiction to hold the relevant officials criminally responsible for Mr Abdallah’s death.

“What we've found out lately is that all the laws that were put in place to protect journalists are just words,” Ms Assi says. “Who was behind the crime: that's what we need to know. There is a criminal out there still free, living his life.”

Israel said after the strike that it was “very sorry” for Mr Abdallah’s death. “The area is an active combat zone, where active fire takes place and being in this area is dangerous,” it said.

“They are blaming us for doing our job,” Ms Assi says.

She says she will keep fighting for the attack to be recognised as a war crime.

“It wasn’t a mistake.”

But the road to justice in a country on the brink of all-out war is fraught with difficulty, as civilian casualties mount to more than 100, and despite several calls for investigations into apparent war crimes committed by Israel in Lebanon since October.

Ms Assi said she does not have “diplomatic” words to describe the situation in Lebanon.

“Man, it’s messed up,” she says.

At the time of the interview, Lebanon was bracing for “severe” Israeli retaliation after a deadly attack on the occupied Golan that killed 12 children. Israel blamed the attack on Hezbollah, which denied responsibility.

“I'm traumatised as hell by what happened, and now I have to sit here and just check Twitter to see if we're going to be bombed or not. It's just weird for me,” says Ms Assi.

The next day, Israel attacked the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr and five civilians and wounding dozens. Hezbollah promised a retaliation that would make Israel “weep”.