Israeli forces shot Shireen Abu Akleh in the head while she was on assignment in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
Eye witnesses also discounted the prime minister’s version of events. One of them was the journalist Ali al-Samudi
who was among a group of five journalists standing with Abu Akleh, all
of them clearly identifiable by their press flak jackets and helmets.
“There were no fighters where we were, none at all,” al-Samudi said.
“We don’t put ourselves in the line of fire. Whatever the Israeli army
says for us to do, we do. They shot at us directly and deliberately.”
Al-Samudi was shot in the back just before Abu Akleh was killed with a
single shot to the head.
It fell to the head of the IDF Lieutenant General Aviv Kohavi to walk back
the Bennett narrative later in the day: “At this stage, it is not
possible to determine whose gunfire she was hit by and we are sorry for
her death.”
For those who knew the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (included
among them is the writer of this newsletter) the clumsy attempt to
deflect responsibility recalls, in an eerie and unsettling way, the
Saudi government’s denials, lies and obfuscations over his murder. One
story followed another as the Turkish authorities released evidence
proving each one a lie.
That Abu Akleh held joint Palestinian-American citizenship and was
highly regarded and deeply respected both internationally and among
Palestinians has put some pressure on Israel as they continue to
scramble to put into place a damage limitation strategy, after their
initial attempt collapsed in disarray.
Their efforts will not have been helped by video footage
on Thursday showing Israeli police removing Palestinian flags from the
church where a service for Abu Akleh was being held. After seizing the
flags they knocked into people gathered outside and harassed an Al
Jazeera journalist as she was attempting to do a live report. On Friday
police attacked firing stun grenades and beating mourners with batons.
A BBC correspondent described the scene:
What happened next was extraordinary. I was behind the packed
crowd so I couldn't see the front point of contact, but the Israeli
police suddenly pushed back the crowd, including the coffin and its
carriers….They fired stun grenades towards the mourners and the press
and were storming into the compound.
The veteran Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, long a harsh critic of the IDF, reflected
on the killing of Abu Akleh while writing about a 19 year-old student
Hanan Khadour shot and killed in Jenin last month by the army:
Then, too, the military spokesman tried to cast doubt on the
shooters’ identity: “The matter is being examined.” A month has passed,
and this “examination” has yielded nothing, and never will – but the
doubts were planted, and they sprouted in the Israeli fields of denial
and suppression, where no one actually cares about the fate of a
19-year-old Palestinian girl, and the country’s dead conscience is
silenced again. Is there a single crime committed by the military that
the right and the establishment will ever accept responsibility for?
Just one?
And on the B’tselem website
is the story of a 16 year old, Nader Rayan, shot and wounded on 16
March in Nablus by Border Police who then walked up and shot him at
close range, firing multiple rounds into his body and killing him. As
with Abu Akleh one narrative was put out and then modified to a
different version after video was posted on social media that proved the
initial story was a lie.
The online Time
website provides a telling compilation of civilians killed over the
years and how the IDF, the police and the government have managed to
tamp down any fallout: “Deny and deflect is Israel’s usual strategy for
dealing with high-profile civilian deaths.”
Will the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh be any different? Perhaps, given
that she was an American citizen. But only sustained and determined
pressure from Israel’s allies, and that includes the UK, will force the
authorities to allow an international, open and independent
investigation of her death.
Arab Digest expresses our deepest condolences to the family of Shireen Abu Akleh and to her Al Jazeera colleagues.