The veteran journalist had a lengthy career spanning 25 years in which she extensively covered the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has said there is a “high possibility” that one of their soldiers shot and killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
After nearly four months of investigation, the IDF said that it’s most likely that Ms Akleh was killed by one of their members but it was accidental and the people involved would not be punished.
“He misidentified her. His reports in real time… absolutely point to a misidentification,” said a senior IDF official.
“We know that he fired, but it could very well be that this happened from other fire.”
It was claimed by the IDF that it could have potentially been gunfire from Palestine that killed Ms Akleh but did not address video evidence or reports that showed there was limited military activity from either side until the journalist was shot.
The IDF said that there would be no criminal investigation after the findings were approved by the chief military prosecutor.
The veteran journalist was killed on May 11 in the West Bank city of Jenin while covering conflict between Palestine and Israel despite wearing a vest that had ‘PRESS’ labelled on the front and back.
In spite of the findings, Palestine, Shireen’s family, and human rights activists have called the conclusion a way to try and “obscure the truth”.
“As expected, Israel has refused to take responsibility for murdering Shireen. Our family is not surprised by this outcome since it’s obvious that Israeli war criminals cannot investigate their own crimes,” her family said in a statement.
“However, we remain deeply hurt, frustrated, and disappointed.”
Israeli-based human rights NGO B’Tselem denounced the findings
“It’s not an investigation, it’s whitewash; it was no mistake, it’s policy,” they said.
“The killing of Abu Akleh is the predictable result of Israel’s outrageous open fire policy in the Occupied Territories. This policy claims more and more victims while the whitewash continues undisturbed.”
Al Jazeera- who Abu Akleh worked for- said that the previous independent investigations proved the IDF’s responsibility for the killing.
“Al Jazeera condemns the Israeli Occupation Forces’ reluctance to explicitly admit their crime and attempts to evade the prosecution of the perpetrators,” they said.
