An Al Jazeera journalist was shot in the head Wednesday while covering Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank, news agency report. Shireen Abu Akleh, a US citizen, is believed to have died at the hospital following a shooting that the reporter’s colleagues described as a targeted attack by Israeli forces.
Ali Samoudi, Akleh’s colleague, said: “We were going to film the Israeli military activity and suddenly they shot us without asking us to leave or stop filming. “The first bullet hit me and the second bullet hit Shireen… there was no resistance from the Palestinian army at the scene,” Samoudi said.
Samoudi, who was shot in the back, was hospitalized in stable condition following the shooting in the town of Jenin.
Another Palestinian journalist at the scene, Shatha Hanaysha, alleges that the newspaper was deliberately targeted by Israeli forces.
“We are four journalists, all wearing suits and helmets. The [Israeli] The occupying army did not stop firing even after she collapsed. I couldn’t even extend my arms to pull her because of the shots. The army is determined to shoot and kill,” Hanaysha told Al Jazeera.
PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL /
Journalists react next to the body of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli army gunfire during an Israeli raid, according to the Qatar-based news channel, in Jenin, Bank West occupied by Israel on May 11, 2022.
Reuters
The news network has called on the international community to “condemn and hold the Israeli occupation forces accountable for deliberately targeting and killing our colleagues,” suggesting that they may “try to try to cover up their crimes.”
The US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, is calling for “a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the [Akleh’s] death and wounding of at least one other journalist today in Jenin. ”
Israeli authorities paint a completely different picture of events surrounding the famous journalist’s death, claiming Palestinian gunmen opened fire at the time Akleh was attacked.
The Israel Defense Forces said they were “looking into the possibility that journalists were hit by Palestinian gunmen.”
Akleh, who has been with the news network since 1997, was one of its first field reporters.
“Shireen was a brave, kind and highly integrity journalist whom I and millions of Palestinians grew up watching,” activist Fadi Quran wrote of her death.
Her final dispatch to the news network’s Ramallah office, sent at 6:13 a.m., said: “The occupation forces attacked Jenin and surrounded a house in the Jabriyat neighborhood. On the way there, I’ll bring you the news as soon as the picture becomes clear.”
