Why did Israel kill Shireen Abu Akleh?

One year on, will there ever be accountability?

Today marks exactly one year since Israel killed renowned Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

This killing was a crime against the truth.

Shireen was one of the most well-known faces in the Arab world. She had reported for Al Jazeera since 1997, as the network’s most indefatigable Palestinian correspondent from Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

She reported all throughout the Second Intifada, which began in 2000. After her death, thousands of Palestinians lined the streets to pay tribute to her as a Palestinian martyr.

She was killed, deliberately, by a group of Israeli troops invading the Palestinian town of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, early in the morning of 11 May 2022.

The facts of what happened that day are extremely well established, by multiple, exhaustive, investigations.

After arriving in the area to report on that morning’s Israeli invasion, Shireen and another Al Jazeera journalist, Ali Samoudi, along with two other colleagues carefully checked that the area was safe to report from.

Using standard journalistic safety procedures, they ensured there was no gun battle in the area between Israeli occupation soldiers and Palestinian fighters. Neither were there any confrontations between the soldiers and Palestinian protesters – which more often than not result in Israeli gunfire and frequently, in Palestinian fatalities.

At the time, Israeli army thugs had been conducting near-daily raids on the Jenin refugee camp, incursions which were often resisted by armed Palestinian fighters.

But the attack on the journalists that morning took place in an open area on the outskirts of the camp, in an area where there absolutely no “crossfire” happening.

Wearing helmets and flack jackets clearly marked “PRESS” in giant letters (common safety equipment for TV reporters in Palestine) Ali, Shireen and two of their colleagues began slowly and carefully walking towards a group of Israeli soldiers, who were ensconced in a small convey of armoured vehicles which had parked up some 200 meters down the road – and were very clearly visible.

Less than a second after they began walking, six shots were fired by the Israelis. Ali was hit in the back. He can be seen on video running away, exclaiming that he had been wounded. Eight seconds after the first round of shooting began, a second round of fire came from the Israelis – seven shots fired in rapid succession.

It was one of these shots that fatally wounded Shireen, hitting her in the head. The skilfully targeted Israeli sharpshooter fatally struck the journalist, deliberately evading the protection afforded by her helmet.

One of Shireen’s colleagues, along with a Palestinian civilian nearby, attempt to rescue Shireen’s lifeless body. They were then fired on by the Israelis, who were trying to stop Shireen receiving medical treatment.

After the shooting, the Israelis also tried to murder her memory, and cover up their responsibility for the killing.

Shireen’s global prominence, as well as her status as a US citizen, meant that her killing got more press coverage than is usual when it comes to Israeli killings of Palestinians – even killing of Palestinian journalists.

Two days after the killing, Israeli forces attacked Shireen’s funeral in Jerusalem, beating pallbearers who somehow narrowly managed to prevent the coffin from being spilled open and the body dashed onto the ground.

On the day of the killing itself, Israeli propagandists initially claimed Palestinians had been responsible for the murder of the Palestinian journalist.

Naftali Bennett, then prime minister, falsely claimed that “it appears likely that armed Palestinians – who were firing indiscriminately at the time – were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist.”

The Twitter accounts for the Israeli foreign ministry, the Israeli army, the Israeli embassy to the US and other such propagandists put out a highly misleading video – of an entirely separate incident, in a totally different, built-up area – to back up this false claim.

But this story soon fell apart. Israeli officials were that same day forced to walk back the initial claim of Palestinian responsibility. But other Israelis were saying the quiet part out loud.

Itamar Ben-Gvir (a politician from the ultra-right “Jewish Power” party who is now “national security” minister in the far-right Israeli government that came to power in December) tweeted on the day of Shireen’s murder that: “She was reportedly injured in fire by the terrorists … But in any case, full backing to the heroic Israeli army soldiers.”

Since then, there have been multiple investigations into the killing, including by the Associated Press, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, CNN and the New York Times.

All concluded that Israel fired all the shots.

The most exhaustive investigation (and the one I’ve relied on for my account of the details of the 11th of May 2022 in this article) was carried out by the veteran Palestinian human rights group Al Haq and the London-based group Forensic Architecture.

“Shireen and her colleagues were explicitly targeted, despite being identifiable as members of the press,” the investigation concluded in September.

“The proximity of the shots,” including four that hit a tree shielding some of Shireen’s colleagues, “confirms a professional marksman repeatedly and explicitly targeted the journalists.”

All of the shots “were aimed above the shoulders and intended to kill,” the investigators concluded.

Video footage analysed by the investigators shows there was nobody else standing between the journalists and the convoy of Israeli armoured vehicles. There were no armed persons near Shireen and her colleagues other than the Israelis.

Sound analysis confirms that the only shot fired in the three minutes before the shooting of Shireen (the same period there was available footage) came from the Israeli position.

Under pressure –and thanks to a relentless campaign by Shireen’s family and Al Jazeera colleagues– the Israelis now have finally admitted that one of their troops likely fired the deadly shot (they are keeping the soldiers identity a closely guarded secret).

But shifting their story once more, they now falsely claim that Shireen was “mistakenly shot by an Israeli soldier while under fire who … misidentified her as an armed Palestinian.”

But Forensic Architecture’s exhaustive video analysis and spatial reconstruction of the scene shows that claim to be ludicrous – and utterly impossible.

From the 190 metre distance that the killing shot was fired, the Israeli solider behind the scope would have very easily seen the “PRESS” markings on the journalists’ flack jackets. It would have been impossible for the shooter to mistake them for Palestinian fighters (who were not in the area in any case).

Despite the fact that Shireen was a US citizen, American politicians and officials have been conspiring in the Israeli cover-up for the whole year.

Ned Price, a State Department spokesperson said in September that “we’ve always been very clear that we’re not looking for criminal accountability” in Abu Akleh’s case. He falsely claimed Shireen’s death was “the tragic result of a gunfight”.

The US was happy for the Israeli army to “investigate” itself, whitewashing itself of any accountability for the murder of Shireen.

The Committee to Protect Journalists released a new report on Tuesday documenting the killing at Israeli hands of 20 journalists since 2001. They were mostly Palestinians, but included an Italian photographer and a British cameraman, James Miller.

But the true figure is much higher.

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information stated last year that at least 45 journalists have been killed by Israeli forces since 2000. While the Palestinian Journalists’ Union placed the death toll at 55.

During Israel’s 11-day military assault on Gaza in May 2021, they bombed multiple towers in Gaza housing the offices of some two dozen international and local media organizations.

On 12 May 2021 –almost one year to the day before the killing of Shireen– Israeli warplanes struck the al-Jawhara building, which contained offices of several Arabic-language broadcasters.

The same day, Israeli bomber jets levelled the al-Shurouq media tower in Gaza City to the ground.

Then, on 15 May 2021, Israeli warplanes obliterated the al-Jalaa building, which housed the offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.

Israel’s targeting of Palestinian and international journalists is deliberate and systematic.

Shireen’s colleague Ali Samoudi has explained why he and his Al Jazeera colleagues were targeted by the Israeli occupation criminals that day: “We pose a danger to them because we expose them.”

There was once a time, many decades ago when, outside of the Arab world, Israel was very largely able to cover up the truth. Those days are long gone.

As Malcolm X famously put it: truth is on the side of the oppressed.

Israel is only able to get away with these crimes because it is given complete impunity to murder Palestinians at will by the US, the EU and by the British government.

It’s up to us to change that.

This article is based on the text of a talk I gave at Scotland Supports Palestine in Edinburgh and Glasgow earlier this week.