One year after killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, RSF denounces scandalous impunity that persists in the case
One year after Al Jazeera’s
well known Palestine correspondent was fatally shot while reporting in
the West Bank on 11 May 2022, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns
the lack of progress in the official investigations into her death and
the failure to bring anyone to justice.
Several events are being held to pay tribute to Shireen Abu Akleh on
the first anniversary of her death while covering an Israeli army
raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. But justice has yet to
be served even though many expert reports have directly implicated the
Israeli Defense Forces and the IDF even acknowledged that the fatal shot
was “very probably” fired by one of their soldiers.
“When
there is a will there is a way. Although all the investigations clearly
show that Israeli forces were responsible for Shireen Abu Akleh’s
death, the absence of political will still prevents justice from being
rendered. The systematic Israeli impunity is outrageous and cannot
continue. RSF will remain mobilized on all fronts until those
responsible have been identified and brought to justice.”
Jonathan Dagher
Head of RSF’s Middle East desk
After then Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on
6 December 2022 that “no one will interrogate IDF soldiers,” all eyes
turned to the United States, as Abu Akleh was a citizen of both the US
and Palestine. But there has been little progress despite pressure from US legislators and Abu Akleh’s family.
According to Axios,
the US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority
submitted a new report on Abu Akleh’s death to the US State Department
on 2 May. The report has not been published but, at a press briefing the
next day, a State Department spokesperson said he understood that the
report’s conclusion was unchanged, namely that, although “IDF gunfire
was likely the reason,” her death was “unintentional.”
This conclusion is refuted by the independent investigation carried
out in September 2022 by Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights
organization, and their Forensic Architecture Investigation Unit, which
blamed “the deliberate and repeated targeting of Shireen and her
colleagues by the [Israeli occupying forces].” Meanwhile, the findings
of the criminal investigation that the FBI launched on 5 November 2022
have yet to be published.
On the basis of the conclusions of Al Haq’s FAI Unit, Abu Akleh’s niece, Lina Abu Akleh, filed a complaint on behalf of the family with the International Criminal Court on 20 September 2022, accusing the IDF of killing the Al Jazeera reporter intentionally and calling for an ICC investigation. With RSF’s support, Al Jazeera submitted additional evidence to the ICC two and a half months later.
Since
Abu Akleh’s death, the Israeli security forces have continued to target
reporters covering Israeli operations in the Palestinian territories.
An RSF investigation found
that at least 17 journalists were directly targeted by Israeli security
forces in the space of a week last April in the West Bank or Jerusalem.
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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS / REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES (RSF)
Peter Jones
Press/Communications Officer, Washington, DC Bureau
pjones@rsf.org
(202) 813-9497, ext 3