Israeli forces killed a Palestinian journalist for the Al Jazeera news network in the West Bank early Wednesday,
V/D/C NEWS:
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Israeli forces killed a Palestinian American journalist for the Al Jazeera news network in the West Bank early Wednesday, according to the network and the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli officials said the journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was killed in an exchange of gunfire but said they had not determined who fired the fatal shot.
Abu Akleh, 51, a longtime Al Jazeera correspondent and a revered figure on Arab television screens, was shot in the neck while covering Israeli raids in the Jenin refugee camp, according to witness accounts.
In a statement, Al Jazeera accused Israeli forces of killing Shireen Abu Akleh “in cold blood” and said she had been “clearly wearing a press jacket that identifies her as a journalist.” In interviews, multiple eyewitnesses — including two journalists who were standing next to Abu Akleh — disputed Israeli assertions that she was killed during crossfire, saying there was no fighting in the area just before Abu Akleh was shot.
“It was dead quiet,” one of the journalists, Ali al-Samudi, who was also injured by gunfire, told The Washington Post in an interview from his hospital bed. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the shooting occurred while the Israel Defense Forces were conducting counterterrorism operations in Jenin, after a spate of deadly attacks over the past few weeks in Israeli cities. During the operation, he said, “armed Palestinians shot in an inaccurate, indiscriminate and uncontrolled manner.”
“Our forces from the IDF returned fire as accurately, carefully and responsibly as possible. Sadly, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the exchange,” he said. “… Without a serious investigation, we will not reach the truth.”
