Israeli police beat pallbearers at journalist’s funeral
ISRAELI police moved in on mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – beating demonstrators with batons and causing pallbearers to drop her coffin.
The crackdown came during a rare show of Palestinian nationalism in east Jerusalem – the part of the holy city Israel captured in 1967 that Palestinians claim as their capital.
Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and has annexed the area in a move not internationally recognised.
It routinely clamps down on any displays of support for Palestinian statehood there.
Thousands of mourners, some hoisting Palestinian flags and chanting “Palestine, Palestine”, attended the funeral of Ms Abu Akleh, who witnesses say was shot and killed by Israeli forces earlier this week while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank.
“We die for Palestine to live,” the crowd chanted. “Our beloved home.” Later, they sang the Palestinian national anthem.
Ahead of Friday’s service, dozens of mourners tried to march with the coffin on foot out of a hospital to a Catholic church in the nearby Old City. Police said the crowd at the hospital was chanting “nationalist incitement”, ignored calls to stop, and threw stones at officers.
“The policemen were forced to act,” the force said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its initial investigation into Ms Abu Akleh’s death showed that a heavy firefight was under way in the West Bank town of Jenin about 200 metres from where she was killed, but that it was unable to determine whether she was shot by Israeli forces or Palestinian militants.
Recent days have seen an outpouring of grief from across the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world.
Ms Abu Akleh was a respected on-air correspondent who spent a quarter of a century covering life under Israeli military rule.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said America was “deeply troubled by the images of Israeli police intruding into the funeral procession of Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh”, adding: “Every family deserves to lay their loved ones to rest in a dignified and unimpeded manner.”