The Israeli army acknowledged for the first time on Monday that there was “a strong possibility” that the journalist for the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera channel Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in May by one of its soldiers.
The Al-Jazeera star, the American-Palestinian journalist, was shot dead on May 11 while covering an Israeli military operation in the Jenin Palestinian camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the northern occupied West Bank, where a special unit was trying to apprehend “suspects”, which led to armed clashes.
Following the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, who was wearing a bulletproof vest with the words “press” on it and a helmet, the Palestinian Authority and her employer Al-Jazeera immediately accused the Israeli army of killing her. Israel has consistently denied this accusation, despite journalistic investigations and a UN report concluding that an Israeli shot was fired, which however rules out that it was deliberate.
The “final conclusions” of the Israeli investigation published
However, on Monday, the Israeli army published the “final conclusions” of its investigation and acknowledged that one of its soldiers had indeed shot the journalist, mistaking her identity: “There is a strong possibility that Mrs. Abu Akleh has accidentally hit by Israeli army fire aimed at suspects identified as armed Palestinians”.
The army said it studied the sequence of events “chronologically”, analyzed the scene, videos and sounds recorded at the scene, carried out a “simulation of the scene” and that “Israeli experts” carried out a ballistic analysis of the ball on 2 of July. in the presence of representatives of the “United States Security Coordination Committee for Israel and the Palestinian Authority”.
Due to the “poor condition of the bullet,” identifying its origin was “difficult,” the Army underlines in its report, noting that it is not “unequivocally” certain of the origin of the fatal shot against the journalist.
‘Not done deliberately,’ says Israel
Like the Israeli military, the United States had concluded that Shireen Abu Akleh had “probably” been killed by fire from an Israeli position, without having reason to believe her death was intentional.
“The soldier was not trying to attack an Al-Jazeera journalist or a journalist in general… The soldier misidentified his target and he regrets it,” a senior Israeli military official said during a press interview on Monday. . “It shouldn’t have happened, he didn’t do it deliberately,” he added.
This official indicated that the soldier, stationed about 200 meters behind the journalist, had not seen his inscription “press” on the front of his bulletproof vest. He said that the journalist had been shot in the back of the head.
The Israeli military prosecutor’s office announced on Monday that “there were no suspicions of a criminal act that would justify the opening of a criminal investigation by the military police” and this, although there is a “high probability” that Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli soldiers.
His family calls for a ‘credible’ US investigation
The journalist’s relatives, who lived in Jerusalem, had unsuccessfully requested to meet with US President Joe Biden during his July visit to the Holy City.
At the invitation of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, members of the Abu Akleh family traveled to Washington to meet with senior US officials.
The Abu Akleh family on Monday accused the Israeli authorities of “evading responsibility for the murder” of the journalist, in a press release published after the Israeli investigation report. “We remain deeply hurt, frustrated and disappointed,” the family said, calling for a “credible” US investigation.
Source: BFM TV
