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What does the U.S. government owe its citizens overseas? - in particular, if they are attacked. Dylan Collins is a journalist from Vermont. He's been pressing this question for more than two years, and it's complicated by the fact that the attacker in this case is one of America's closest allies. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from Dundoth, Maryland, and a warning - this story includes the sounds of explosions and graphic accounts of injuries.
DYLAN COLLINS: How you doing, Frank?
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: I'm fine. How are you Dylan?
COLLINS: Good.
LANGFITT: Peter (ph), nice house. I like...
I met Collins at his dad's house outside of Baltimore. Collins had flown in from his home in Beirut for a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol. Here he is speaking earlier this month.
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COLLINS: I've met with lawmakers. I met with the State Department. I met with the FBI. I sat down and showed them the raw footage. As an American, I thought I'd find support. I thought my government would fight for me.
LANGFITT: Collins works as a cameraman for the news service Agence France Presse in Lebanon. The raw footage he's talking about is from October 2023. Here's what happened. A few days after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, Collins and fellow journalists drove to southern Lebanon to find out what was happening along the border with Israel.
COLLINS: We had been down there for two days and nothing was happening. No fighting, no outgoing fire, no incoming fire, nothing.
LANGFITT: That afternoon, they spotted a plume of smoke in the distance. They drove through an open hilltop near the Israeli border. Collins and two other news teams set up cameras and began live feeds.
COLLINS: We're all wearing the flak jackets, the helmets, press right across your chest.
LANGFITT: Collins said the spot seemed safe. He began texting a colleague. And then out of nowhere...
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COLLINS: This big, big, explosion hit. My colleague, Christina, was behind me, and I just heard her voice. You know, she was screaming.
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CHRISTINA ASSI: What happened? What happened? What happening? What happened? I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs.
LANGFITT: Christina Assi was working as a photo editor for AFP. She couldn't feel her legs because they'd taken so much shrapnel. Collins grabbed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Then, a double-tap.
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COLLINS: I didn't even get a chance to tighten it when another explosion happened. It was a tank shell. It hit the car belonging to Al Jazeera. The car exploded, and it was right in my - probably six feet from me.
LANGFITT: Assi lost her right leg below the knee. Issam Abdallah, a cameraman with Reuters, was killed.
COLLINS: I got shrapnel here, on my arm.
LANGFITT: I can actually see it.
COLLINS: Yeah.
LANGFITT: Oh, wow.
It sits just below the skin, forming a big bump on his forearm. Collins also took shrapnel to his other arm, as well as his face, head and torso. At this month's press conference, Amelia Evans, advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said there's no doubt who fired the tank rounds.
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AMELIA EVANS: Five international organizations, including a U.N. body, all have concluded that Israel was responsible for the attack and offered a preponderance of evidence showing just how identifiable the journalists were.
LANGFITT: The committee says at least 246 journalists and media workers in Gaza and the region have been killed since the start of the war. Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, said he pressed the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, for answers.
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PETER WELCH: The IDF claimed they conducted an investigation, but there's absolutely no evidence that there was any investigation. IDF has not spoken to Dylan. The IDF has not spoken to the other victims.
LANGFITT: The Israeli military told NPR, quote, "the incident is being examined." Collins says he's reached out to both the Biden and Trump administrations.
COLLINS: 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, but because I'd only been wounded, it would be pretty tough.
LANGFITT: How did you - did you respond to that?
COLLINS: I kind of made my blood run cold, honestly.
LANGFITT: The State Department has not responded to NPR's request for comment. In a 2024 letter to Vermont's congressional delegation, the State Department said, quote, "we have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens." Collins doesn't buy that.
COLLINS: I don't think I was super optimistic about receiving all sorts of support from the American government, but I certainly expected more than nothing.
LANGFITT: Why do you think the United States appears not to have engaged in this?
COLLINS: 'Cause maybe it's not politically expedient to do so.
LANGFITT: The United States arms Israel, which is America's top ally in the Middle East.
ASSI: I'm Christina Assi, 30-years-old. I am currently in Lebanon getting my first prosthetic.
LANGFITT: Assi is Lebanese. She says she knows why the Israelis fired on her and her colleagues.
ASSI: It's systematic. It's a plan. 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.
LANGFITT: Assi is still learning to walk again.
ASSI: I'm excited to get my prosthetics. I'm excited to walk again, and hopefully - I'm hoping it will be a smooth process because I'm drained and tired.
LANGFITT: And she's not giving up on journalism. After rehab, Assi says she's committed to returning to the field to document history and human stories.
Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Dundalk, Maryland. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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