With the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestine loses its most important voice
Rights — di Luigi Mastrodonato
Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead in Jenin. Evidence and testimonies show that it was Israeli soldiers who fired.
With the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestine loses its most important voice
Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead in Jenin. Evidence and testimonies show that it was Israeli soldiers who fired.
Shireen Abu Akleh was one of the most important journalists working in the Palestinian territories, a correspondent for the international outlet Al Jazeera. She was killed while documenting an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in Jenin, and it was Israeli security forces who fired the shot, according to confirmation from Al Jazeera itself and from several witnesses on the ground, while an independent investigation into the incident has been announced.
Her death comes at a moment of mounting tension in the West Bank between the Palestinian population and Israeli forces — and forces an update to the tragic toll of journalists who have lost their lives in the territory.
The escalation of tension between Israel and Palestine
Israel and Palestine are going through one of the most tense periods ever recorded. Exactly a year ago, the worst crisis of the past decade unfolded, after repeated protests by the Palestinian population over the eviction of several families by Israeli settlers in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah led to a wave of repression ordered by Tel Aviv, culminating in violent clashes on the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Palestinian Muslims.
The Palestinian political-military group Hamas and other militias had responded by firing rockets into Israeli territory, intercepted by the Iron Dome shield. Tel Aviv's response was swift: two weeks of bombardments on Gaza killed hundreds of civilians, including women and children, also striking schools, medical facilities and press offices. Over the course of last summer there were further, more sporadic bombardments on the Gaza Strip, in response to the launching of incendiary balloons from the Palestinian side. In the months that followed, tensions remained high, and in September 2021 six Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism escaped from Israel's high-security Gilboa prison. "News that shatters, in the country's collective imagination, the myth of being protected by its own military and police system," writes Paola Caridi on Valigia Blu.
The escapees were recaptured through sweeping operations in the weeks that followed, but the mistrust the jailbreak generated within the country led to a more forceful response whenever new incidents and attacks occurred, both to prevent them and to send a message to the nation. While in April Israeli security forces cracked down hard on the Temple Mount in response to the throwing of stones, entering in force even Al-Aqsa Mosque and deploying stun grenades and tear gas, an escalation of Arab-perpetrated attacks in Israeli territory and in Palestinian territory occupied by settlers brought a renewed sense of widespread insecurity. In particular, in recent weeks 21 Israelis have died in such circumstances, victims of attacks by lone wolves rather than agents of a large-scale strategy. And Israel's iron fist in the Palestinian territories was not slow to follow.
The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
At dawn on 11 May the Israeli army launched an operation in the Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank. The objective was the same as ever: to hunt down collaborators behind the attacks carried out against Israeli citizens in recent weeks and, more broadly, to intercept any terrorist cells, while simultaneously sending a show of strength to the entire Palestinian population of the area.
Il momento in cui la salma di #ShireenAbuAkleh è arrivato alla sede di Al Jazeera a #Ramallah.
Among the journalists present to document the raid was the Palestinian Shireen Abu Akleh. Born in Jerusalem 51 years ago into a Catholic family, after graduating in journalism in Jordan she moved to the United States, where she obtained citizenship. Returning to Palestine, she worked for several local media outlets before spending the past 25 years with the international network Al Jazeera. Shireen Abu Akleh was considered one of the most important narrative voices in a territory where, between movement restrictions, bombardments, various logistical difficulties and censorship of every kind, journalism has always been extremely hard to practise. She was also a female role model in an area where women are barred from most of the things we tend to consider normal, including the ability to travel alone.
"I know many girls who grew up standing in front of a mirror holding hairbrushes as microphones and pretending to be Shireen. That's how important she was," said a fellow journalist. Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, described her as "a legend of journalism".
Shireen Abu Akleh died on 11 May after being struck in the forehead by a bullet during the Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp, despite wearing the standard vest marked "Press". Tel Aviv immediately pointed the finger at the Palestinians, claiming that the journalist had been killed by shots fired at Israeli soldiers by Palestinian residents of the camp. The Israeli authorities also released a video on the matter, in which a Palestinian man is indeed seen firing. But fact-checking showed that the location and timing have nothing to do with where and when Shireen Abu Akleh was shot.
Documentation of Palestinian gunfire distributed by Israeli military cannot be the gunfire that killed Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
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Ali al Samoudi, a journalist who was with her and was wounded in the back by another bullet, stated that no Palestinian military resistance was under way when the incident occurred. This account was also confirmed by several witnesses on the ground and led Al Jazeera to announce that it was Israeli soldiers who fired, in what appears to be a deliberate execution. Reporters Without Borders, one of the leading international bodies defending freedom of information and press freedom, spoke of a possible violation of the Geneva Convention and called for an independent investigation.
Meanwhile, on 13 May Israeli security forces violently dispersed the funeral procession carrying Shireen Abu Akleh's coffin through the streets of East Jerusalem. Stun grenades and tear gas were deployed, and the pallbearers were struck with batons. According to reports from Al Jazeera, Israeli soldiers tore down Palestinian flags while participants in the procession were asked their religion: Christians were allowed to remain (the journalist came from a Catholic family), while Muslims were driven away.
A massacre of journalists
The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is not a bolt from the blue, but the latest episode in the grim series of journalists who have fallen at the hands of Israeli forces in the Palestinian territories.
According to Reporters Without Borders, since 2018 journalists who have been victims of Israeli attacks number 140, and 30 have been killed in the twenty-first century alone. The Wafa news agency reports 83 media workers killed over the past 50 years — imposing figures when one considers how small the area in which all of this has occurred really is.
And among those who have fallen in recent years there have also been Italian journalists. Such is the case of Raffaele Ciriello, a freelance journalist who was in the West Bank in 2002 on behalf of Corriere della Sera and who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers' bullets. Or of Simone Camilli, an Associated Press video journalist who in 2014 was killed by the explosion of an Israeli missile in the northern area of the Gaza Strip. A few days ago, the annual press freedom ranking compiled by Reporters Without Borders was released. Israel ranked 86th, demonstrating that the local environment for the media is very difficult and far removed from freedom. The dozens of journalists imprisoned in Israeli jails are further confirmation of this.