SLAIN AL JAZEERA JOURNALIST TO BE LAID TO REST IN JERUSALEM

JERUSALEM: Thousands of mourners, some hoisting Palestinian flags and chanting Palestine, Palestine, on Friday attended the funeral in Jerusalem for an Al Jazeera journalist who witnesses say was shot and killed by Israeli forces earlier this week while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank. Earlier on, ahead of the church service for Abu Akleh, dozens of mourners tried to march with the casket on foot out of a hospital near the Old City. Israeli police moved in and began beating them with batons, causing the pallbearers to briefly drop the casket on the ground. Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its initial investigation into Shiren Abu Akleh’s death showed that a heavy firefight was underway around 200 meters (yards) from where she was killed, but that it was unable to determine whether she was shot by Israeli forces or Palestinian militants.