On May 11th, an Israeli soldier shot her in the head as she was reporting just outside the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Shireen and other reporters were wearing blue helmets and blue flak jackets clearly emblazoned with the word “press.” Shireen was one of the prominent TV journalists — one of the most prominent TV journalists in the Arab world. She had worked for Al Jazeera for a quarter of a century. She was also a U.S. citizen.
In the six months since her death, no one has been held responsible. After months of pressure, the Biden administration recently opened an FBI investigation into her killing, but Israel is refusing to cooperate in the probe. Israeli officials initially blamed Palestinians for her death, then called evidence “inconclusive,” before once again changing their story in September to say she had been accidentally hit by Israeli troops’ gunfire after they came under fire from Palestinian gunmen. But eyewitness accounts and videos of the area where Shireen Abu Akleh was killed do not show a gun battle. And investigations by Al Jazeera, The New York Times, CNN and other news outlets also challenge the official Israeli version of Shireen’s killing.
The Al Jazeera documentary program Fault Lines has just premiered a remarkable documentary on what happened. It’s called The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. Later in the program, we’ll be joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the correspondent on the documentary, and Shireen’s niece, Lina Abu Akleh. But first, let’s turn to an excerpt from the
— source democracynow.org | Dec 02, 2022