Al Jazeera reporter killed in Israeli West Bank raid
JERUSALEM — Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, one of the satellite channel’s best-known reporters, was shot and killed Wednesday while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank. The broadcaster and two reporters who were with her blamed Israeli forces.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz promised a transparent investigation and said he was in touch with U.S. and Palestinian officials. The Israeli military initially suggested Abu Akleh might have been killed by stray fire from Palestinians, but Gantz was more cautious Wednesday evening.
“We are trying to figure out exactly what happened,” he said. “I don’t have final conclusions.”
Abu Akleh, 51, was wearing a protective vest that identified her as a member of the media, video from the incident showed.
The video, broadcast by Al-jazeera, doesn’t show Abu Akleh being shot, but gunfire can be heard in the first few seconds, followed by a man yelling, “Injured! Shireen, Shireen, oh man, Shireen! Ambulance!”
As he continues to yell for an ambulance, the camera moves toward Abu Akleh, who’s slumped face down.
Next to her in the video, another journalist, identified by the network as Shatha Hanaysha and also wearing a vest marked “Press” and a helmet, crouches down and tries to reach out to Abu Akleh. But she was forced back by gunfire.
Gantz said Israel asked the Palestinian medical team that performed a preliminary autopsy to hand over the fatal bullet for further examination. The head of the Palestinian forensics institute, Rayan al-ali, said earlier Wednesday that the bullet was deformed and that he couldn’t yet determine who fired it.
Abu Akleh’s death could draw new scrutiny of Israel’s military justice system, which is being examined as part of a war crimes probe conducted by the International Criminal Court. It also threatened to further strain often rocky relations between the army and the international media.
Abu Akleh was a respected and familiar face in the Middle East, known for her coverage on Al Jazeera Arabic of the harsh realities of Israel’s open-ended military occupation of the Palestinians, now in its 55th year. She was widely recognized in the West Bank and was also a U.S. citizen.
Her death reverberated across the region. Arab governments condemned the killing, and there was an outpouring of grief in the West Bank.
In Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian government, Abu Akleh’s body, draped in a Palestinian flag and covered by a wreath of flowers, was carried through downtown streets. Hundreds chanted, “With our spirit, with our blood, we will redeem you, Shireen.”
On Thursday, a procession was to take the body for burial in Jerusalem, where Abu Akleh was born.