Palestinian probe says Israeli forces deliberately shot Journalist Abu Akleh

OCCUPIED WEST BANK - May 26, 2022 - AlJazeera -  A Palestinian official has said that an investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh shows Israeli forces deliberately shot and killed the veteran journalist.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday from the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian Attorney General Akram Al Khatib said: “It was clear that one of the [Israeli] occupation forces … had fired a bullet that hit journalist Shireen Abu Akleh directly in her head” while she was attempting to escape.

The veteran journalist was hit with an armour-piercing bullet, the attorney general said, while she was wearing a helmet and a vest that was clearly marked with the word “PRESS”.

Al Khatib was reporting on the findings of a Palestinian Authority investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh, who was shot on May 11 while covering an Israeli army incursion in the West Bank city of Jenin.

“The only source of firing was by the occupation forces with the aim to kill,” he said.

Eyewitnesses and colleagues who were present at the scene had previously said Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli forces. Al Jazeera Media Network also said Abu Akleh was “assassinated in cold blood” by Israeli forces.

Al Khatib said the investigation showed that there were no Palestinian fighters near the scene of the shooting, negating Israel’s claim that the bullet may have came from the Palestinians. He said that the army saw Abu Akleh along with other journalists who were all clearly marked as members of the press.

Aside from Abu Akleh, another Al Jazeera journalist, Ali al-Samoudi, was also wounded by a bullet to the back at the scene. He is now in a stable condition.

According to Al Khatib, an autopsy and forensic examination conducted in Nablus after Abu Akleh’s death showed she was shot from the back, indicating that she was attempting to flee as Israeli forces continued to fire towards the group of journalists.

In the meantime, The Palestinian foreign ministry has announced it has formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the killing of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

This follows a call by dozens of US legislators who have signed onto a letter demanding that the FBI investigate the killing, hours after Israel’s military said it will not launch a criminal inquiry into the incident.

Abu Akleh,51, who held US citizenship, was fatally shot by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on May 11, sparking global outrage and widespread calls for an independent or United States-led investigation.

On May 11, Abu Akleh, 51, was covering an Israeli military raid near the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank when she was shot dead. Eyewitnesses and colleagues who were present at the scene said she was killed by Israeli forces.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah, said the bullet that killed Abu Akleh “was 5.56 mm, and it corresponds with mini ruger sniper fire weapon”, according to the findings of the probe.

“So this is part of the evidence the Palestinian attorney general has been analyzing since Shireen has been killed,” Ibrahim said. “They hope that this investigation gets picked up by international organisations, specifically by the International Criminal Court, to bring Shireen justice.”

The findings of the probe came days after the Palestinian foreign minister announced it had formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Abu Akleh’s killing. Numerous calls for an independent and impartial probe have mounted since Abu Akleh’s killing, including by the United States and the United Nations.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said it is important that there is a “follow up” to this investigation.

“It’s important that various international institutions and legal groups are following this and that this becomes important also for Israel’s allies in Washington, London and Paris because we know for sure what happened when one country in the Middle East killed one journalist that happened to work for the Washington post,” Bishara said.

“We have documented [the crime] and submitted a file about it to the ICC prosecutor alongside other Israeli violations,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told Anadolu Agency on Monday.

Al-Maliki called on The Hague-based court to add Abu Akleh’s death to other crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians to facilitate an official investigation and bring Israel to accountability.

“Palestinians say the killing of Abu Akleh is war crimes indeed. They have referred the case to the ICC in addition to the dozens of other cases that have been filed over the last year or so…,” said Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Al Jazeera says Abu Akleh was “assassinated in cold blood” by Israeli forces. The news network and the Palestinians have called for an independent and impartial probe into the killing, which has attracted global condemnation.

Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, accused the ICC of a “double standard” in its handling of cases submitted by Palestinians.

“We have been providing information for the past 13 years but investigation has not been started yet. And in less than two months the ICC has sent 42 investigators to Ukraine,” Barghouti, a former Palestinian information minister, said.

Barghouti said that there was a need for strong international pressure on the ICC to initiate its work and investigate the crimes, including the crime of killing Shireen Abu Akleh.

“What we also need here is real pressure on Israeli establishment, a serious effort to establish sanctions and punitive acts against Israel, not to allow it to continue to be above international law.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has urged the international community to work to resolve ignored conflicts in the world, stressing in particular the Israel-Palestine conflict, just as it has strived to address the war in Ukraine.

“The most glaring example is in Palestine, which has been an open wound since the establishment of the United Nations,” he said on Monday. “Those families have been occupied for decades with no relief in sight. The escalation in illegal settlement aggression has been relentless and the same goes for the continued attacks against the Palestinian people.”

The Qatari emir also mentioned the killing of Abu Akleh during his address in Davos.

“Her death was just as horrific as the seven journalists killed in Ukraine since March of this year, and the 18 other journalists killed in Palestine since 2000, and many other journalists killed in the line of duty in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen,” the emir said.