The Olympic Village prepared for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Photo: Paris 2024 / Raphael Vriet
Lebanese photojournalist Christina Assi of Agence France-Presse (AFP) carried the Olympic torch in Paris on Sunday, almost a year after being wounded in an Israeli military strike in south Lebanon while on the job.
She participated in the Olympic torch relay in a wheelchair pushed by her AFP colleague Dylan Collins, who was also injured in the same incident. Assi carried the Olympic torch to honor journalists wounded and killed in the field.
“I hope what we did today honors all the journalists and friends who have been killed this year,” she said, according to AFP. “It’s amazing and heartwarming to see all these people cheering after we survived a targeted attack as journalists.”
Assi was one of six journalists wounded by shelling fired from an Israeli tank on Oct. 13, 2023, while reporting on fire exchanged along the border between Israeli soldiers and members of Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group. Assi was severely wounded and had her right leg amputated. The attack also killed 37-year-old Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah. Despite accusations by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that it was a deliberate attack on civilians and should be investigated as a war crime, the Israeli military said it did not target the journalists.
“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] deplores any injury to uninvolved parties, and does not deliberately shoot at civilians, including journalists,” IDF spokesperson Nir Dinar said in March. “The IDF considers the freedom of the press to be of utmost importance while clarifying that being in a war zone is dangerous.”
Hezbollah has long been accused of using Lebanese civilians as “human shields” while fighting Israel.
During the Olympic torch relay, which started in May, about 10,000 people from various walks of life carry the Olympic torch flame across France before the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26. Assi completed her 200-meter stretch through the streets of Vincennes, east of Paris.
At the Olympic torch relay, Assi said she wished Abdallah and other journalists killed in the fighting “were here to witness this today.”
“I wish it didn’t take such an attack to be participating and to be representing journalists,” she added, as reported by AFP. “For me, justice comes the day I can stand up again, hold my camera, and get back to work.”
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