According to colleagues, an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon killed a Reuters journalist.

BERLIN — Two colleagues who spoke with the injured journalists in the hospital on Friday as well as an eyewitness said that Reuters lost a cameraman and six other journalists were hurt when Israeli artillery hit the location they were reporting from in southern Lebanon.

Al Araby TV cameraman Charbel Francis reported that when the strike occurred, he was capturing a flurry of Israeli artillery from a hill while positioned roughly 50 feet away from the other journalists. There was no sign of fire coming from Lebanon anywhere near the journalists; the battle was taking place at a distance.

He said, alluding to the Israeli shelling, "We didn't see anything being launched [from Lebanon], everything was falling" on the hill.

A Reuters statement said, "We are deeply saddened to learn that our videographer, Issam Abdallah, has been killed." Abdallah was a member of a Reuters crew in southern Lebanon that was covering border fighting live. The attacker of Abdallah and the other journalists was not identified in the statement. Maher Nazeh and Thaer al-Sudani, two more Reuters reporters, "sustained injuries and are seeking medical care," the news agency reported.

Agence France-Presse and Al Jazeera news channel journalists were also hurt in the strike.

According to Al Jazeera, the journalists had all congregated at one location in the south Lebanon village of Alma al-Chaab for safety. AFP reporter Christina Assi, who was among the injured, shared a video on Friday that showed multiple journalists wearing blue jackets that were tagged "Press," which are bulletproof.

Elie Brakhya, an Al Jazeera cinematographer, and Carmen Joukhadar, a correspondent, were among the injured journalists, according to the station. Dylan Collins was the other injured journalist, according to AFP.

During an exchange of fire with Hezbollah, an Israeli shell fell close to the group, according to the Associated Press, which had a photographer present. According to a Lebanese security source cited by AFP, the area had previously been the target of Israeli strikes.

A request for comment from the Israeli military was not answered. Because they were not permitted to speak on the incident, the injured journalists' coworkers talked under the condition of anonymity.

Abdallah was "killed by an Israeli strike while covering the situation on the southern border" in Lebanon, according to Reporters Without Borders. The press advocacy group said it was "continuing its investigations into the circumstances of this tragedy" and called it a "heinous crime against journalists."

"Holds Israel legally and morally responsible for this brutal attack and calls on the international community to take action to ensure the safety of journalists," Al Jazeera stated in a statement.

In a statement shared on social media, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a mission established in 1978 to monitor the border between Lebanon and Israel, reported that there had been a "heavy exchange of fire" in the region starting at 5:20 p.m. Live footage shown on multiple news channels depicted what looked to be an hour-long bombardment of Lebanese land.

The UNIFIL statement read, "We are deeply saddened to hear that a Lebanese videographer has been killed during this exchange of fire with reports of other journalists injured."

A live feed from the location showed the hillside during the explosion. Just before the feed is stopped, a woman can be heard yelling, "I can't feel my legs." Television transmissions from Lebanon featured a woman writhing on the ground while wearing a press vest, with flames shooting out of her clothes and a burning automobile in the distance.

The bloodshed at the border Fears that the fighting would spread to Lebanon on Friday increased as Israel got ready for a ground assault of Gaza.

UNIFIL declared, "It is obvious that this escalation has the potential to spiral out of control and that it needs to be stopped."

The 37-year-old Beirut-based video journalist Abdallah had covered big issues this year, including as the earthquakes that devastated southern Turkey, as well as the crises in Syria and Ukraine. On Friday, a large group of friends, family, and coworkers paid tribute to Abdallah on social media and staged a vigil in Beirut in his honor.

“He was genuinely one of the most kind and heartwarming people one could know. Totally selfless, a bundle of laughs and an extremely kind individual,” said Tariq Keblaoui, who said that a few weeks ago, Abdallah had helped him escape a protest that was being attacked.

Abdallah’s last post on Instagram was a tribute to Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who was shot and killed last year by the Israeli military.