Journalist Al Jazeera shot dead ‘in cold blood’

Israeli soldiers, according to the television channel Al Jazeera on Wednesday morning, his Palestinian correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh shot “in cold blood”. She was hit by a bullet in the head. Eyewitnesses, including another Palestinian journalist who was himself injured, report that the Israeli army opened fire on 51-year-old Abu Akleh and a group of colleagues without warning.

The incident, which has immediately become a new bone of contention between the Palestinians and Israel, took place in a refugee camp near Jenin, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. In recent weeks, the Israeli army has raided the camp almost daily, in its own words to arrest ‘terrorists’. These raids are often accompanied by a lot of violence. Sometimes there are also shootings between the army and armed Palestinians. Several recent attacks in Israel were perpetrated by men from the Jenin area.

Despite the numerous clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinians, it is relatively rare for journalists to be killed in the Palestinian territories. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists in New York counted a total of eighteen such cases between 1992 and the beginning of this week.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera spoke in a statement Wednesday of “a shameless murder.” Abu Akleh was wearing a safety vest that clearly indicated that she belonged to the media. “We pledge to prosecute the perpetrators,” the station said, “no matter how hard they try to cover up their crime and bring it to justice.”

Inaccurate aim

Israel disputed the Palestinian journalists’ account of the facts. According to army spokesmen, the journalists had been near armed Palestinians who started firing and aimed inaccurately. There would even have been “mass gunfire” from the Palestinian side. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said – without further evidence – that there is “a significant chance that armed Palestinians, who fired at random, were the ones who caused the journalist’s unfortunate death.”

However, Ali al-Samoudi, the journalist and eyewitness who was himself wounded in the back, said there were no armed Palestinians near them when the Israelis opened fire. “They didn’t ask us to leave and they didn’t ask us to stop” [met filmen]† They shot at us. A bullet hit me and another Shireen. They shot her in cold blood,” Samoudi told Reuters news agency from the hospital in Jenin. An AFP photographer present also confirmed this version.

The Israelis offered the Palestinian Authority, which formally controls Jenin and its environs, to perform a joint autopsy on Abu Akleh’s body. But according to Bennett, the Palestinian Authority rejected this offer. Wise through trial and error, Palestinians in general have little faith in such Israeli investigations. The Palestinians prefer to do it themselves.

hit by a bullet

The American news agency AP recalled Wednesday how in 2018 one of his Palestinian reporters, Rashed Rashid, was hit in the ankle by a bullet in the Gaza Strip. Everything indicated that it came from the Israeli army, but the Israeli armed forces have never been willing to admit it. During a brief war between Hamas and Israel, the Israeli Air Force also bombed a building in the city of Gaza where the AP and Al Jazeera both had offices. According to the Israelis, Hamas would have used the building as a command center. However, a warning had been given in advance, as a result of which no injuries were reported.

Abu Akleh, 51, was a respected journalist and had worked as a correspondent for Al Jazeera’s Arab branch for 20 years. Ali al-Samoudi, who accompanied her on Wednesday, works as a producer for Al Jazeera.

After her death, Abu Akleh was carried away by a mob in Jenin as a martyr to the Palestinian cause, her body wrapped with a Palestinian flag and her safety vest. This Thursday she was to receive an official funeral in Ramallah, the administrative Palestinian capital. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will also attend. The Palestinian Authority also speaks of murder and holds Israel responsible for Abu Akleh’s death.

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