Dylan Collins stood on an open hilltop in southern Lebanon videotaping a plume of smoke near the Israeli border.
It was October 2023, less than a week after Hamas had launched a massive attack from Gaza into southern Israel. In solidarity with the Palestinian militants in Gaza, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah had started firing rockets into Israel from the north.
Collins and six other journalists were monitoring military activity along the Lebanese-Israeli border. It was mostly quiet.
"We're all wearing the flak jackets, the helmets," recalled Collins, 37, an American cameraman with the news agency, Agence France Presse (AFP). "It says 'PRESS' ... right across your chest."
Collins had his live-video feed up and was texting a colleague when the first Israeli tank shell landed.
"This big, big explosion hit," Collins recalled. "My colleague, Christina, was behind me and I just heard her voice, she was screaming."
"What happened?" yelled Christina Assi, a Lebanese photo editor for AFP. "I can't feel my legs!"
Shrapnel had shredded her right calf. Collins rushed over and slid a tourniquet up her leg to try to stop the bleeding.
That's when the second tank round landed. A double-tap.
"It hit the car belonging to Al Jazeera," Collins recalled. "The car exploded. It was probably six feet from me."
Collins took shrapnel to his head, arms and torso. Assi lost her right leg below the knee. Issam Abdallah, a cameraman with Reuters, was killed.
Collins lives in Lebanon, but calls Vermont home in the U.S. For the past two years, he's been pressing the Israeli and American governments for some accountability. Who in the Israeli military fired the tank rounds at a group of journalists? Why?
The Israeli government told NPR that "the incident is still being examined," but Collins says Israeli officials have never contacted him. He has met with the State Department and the FBI to no avail.
Earlier this month, Collins flew in from Lebanon to renew his demands at a press conference with members of Congress outside the U.S. Capitol.
"As an American, I thought I'd find support," said Collins. "I thought my government would fight for me."
There is no doubt where the tank rounds came from. The Committee to Protect Journalists notes that various international organizations — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reuters and AFP — all concluded that Israel conducted a deliberate attack on the seven journalists.
Collins says there is no way the Israelis could have confused them with combatants. Human Rights Watch engaged experts to analyze audio gathered by the cameras before the attack. They found that in the 25 minutes leading up to the strike, a drone circled the group 11 times.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called this attack and others like it "war crimes."
CPJ says at least 246 journalists and media workers in Gaza and the region have been killed since the start of the war. The Israeli government has repeatedly denied deliberately targeting journalists.
The State Department has not responded to NPR's request for comment. Collins says he's reached out to both the Biden and Trump administrations, looking for answers.
"A staffer for a current cabinet member in the Trump administration told me that if I had been killed, they might have been able to put out a statement," Collins told NPR, "but because I'd only been wounded, it would be pretty tough."
Collins is a reluctant spokesperson and says he feels much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. Collins, who is lanky with blond hair and blue eyes, spent much of an interview with NPR fidgeting with his hands.
Asked why the U.S. government seems not to have engaged with this issue, Collins responded: "'Cause maybe it's not politically expedient to do so."
The United States arms Israel, which is America's top ally in the Middle East.
Vermont's Congressional delegation has supported Collins and his quest for answers and justice. In 2024, they wrote to the State Department, requesting an independent investigation under the War Crimes Act.
In response, the State Department said it had called on Israel to investigate and would continue to engage with officials there until there was "appropriate accountability."
"Far too many journalists and other civilians have been killed and injured since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks," the letter read. "We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens."
Collins doesn't buy that.
"I don't think I was super-optimistic about receiving all sorts of support from the American government," said Collins, "but I certainly expected more than nothing."
Assi, 30, went through 30 surgeries and spent three months in an intensive care unit. She's getting a prosthetic leg, learning to walk again and plans to return to the field as a photojournalist.
Assi says she knows why the Israelis fired on her and her colleagues.
"It's systematic, it's a plan," she said from her home outside Beirut. "The intention is purely to scare and kill, basically, journalists. And they've been doing so with pure impunity because they know that no one will hold them accountable."
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