Scroll to bottom of page for the basics about the killing on May 11, 2022
Enough. We Know What Happened. Time for Consequences
From the 6 investigations we know Israeli soldiers deliberately shot at the journalist on May 11, deliberately.
It's time for the U.S. and Europe to stop sending aid to Apartheid Israel.
You Tube "Age Restricts" Film on the Killing
Dec 16. You Tube has barred a lot of people from seeing the Al Jazeera film "The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh". It
means it can’t be viewed by people under 18 years of age and everyone not signed into an account. You can guess who organized "viewer complaints". against the film
Al Haq Presentations Shows Killing was Deliberate
Click here to see the extremely professional video presentation by Al Haq. Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization based in Ramallah, West Bank. It was established in 1979 to protect and promote human rights. (The 10 minute presentation was included in the weekly program "The Struggle" (#973)
Incidentally the Israeli government put Al Haq on a list of "terrorist organizations". Small wonder
Amira Hass' Excellent article Nails Israeli Policy
Amira Hass excellent article "Four Reasons Why Israel Can Even Get Away with This Killing" is unfortunately behind a Haaretz paywall. Here's a summary:
The soldier who killed Shireen Abu Akleh was from the "elite Duvdevan unit"
The soldier was supposedly "confused" and supposedly fired "at least 10 bullets" and his commander allowed it.
"The soldiers are programmed to be 'confused'"
The journalists had "passed by the soldiers who were in their armored vehicles" just before the incident. The journalists wanted the soldiers to know they were there.
Video clips filmed in real time ... show that there was "no battle" during the time Abu Akleh and another journalist were shot (he was wounded).
According to B'Tselem there were 16 shots fired. We don't know if one solider fired all the shots.
Hass says there are five "conditions" that allow a killing of a Palestinian with impunity 1) the public believes the "cowboy stories" that soldiers are going up against "equally-powerful enemy forces"; 2) disbelief of any Palestinian testimony; 3) disregard by the Israeli Jewish public of growing Palestinian casualties; 4) for the public to believe it's normal for settlements to expand and Palestinian land to be taken; 5) for the Palestinian to be a person unknown to the Israeli public
Only condition #5 was not met and that's why Shireen Abu Akleh's killing is still mentioned in the media.
The Israeli investigation undertaken by its military was a "cover-up" likely because Israeli government policy is for a "light-trigger finger" to enforce growing settlements.
All the Warn Excuses and Clichés Trotted Out to Defend Abu Akleh Murder
September 5, 2022. The IDF report had them all, "accidentally hit", "caught in the crossfire", "intent of neutralizing the terrorists", "devastating incident", "no suspicion of a criminal offense". After 4 months the Israeli government issued a report saying the obvious, that Israeli soldier most likely shot Abu Akleh.
Haaretz writes that the report said that the reporter was "shot by an Israeli soldier who was using a telescopic scope while under fire and misidentified her as an armed Palestinian gunman." Sure, a youth in a keffiyeh looks exactly like a woman wearing a helmet and a vest marked "Press".
Haaretz writes that the report stated, "Palestinian gunmen standing near Abu Akleh fired towards an Israeli armored vehicle." But the Associated Press report on the killing months ago established that Palestinian fighters were not near the media contingent. They were on the OTHER side of the Israeli troops. But why should nasty facts stand in the way of a well crafted lie?
Undoubtedly the U.S. White House will give huzzahs for the professionalism of the Israeli investigation into the assassination of a U.S. citizen and consider making the extra billion dollars given to Israel's IDF this year a permanent part of the money U.S. taxpayers sends to the most moral army and only democracy in the Middle East (or is it spelled "demoKKKracy").
Tikun Olam Blogger Calls US Response a "Whitewash"
July 7. Click here for Richard Silverstein's angry article
White House Says it was A Tragedy - and That's That
At a press conference on 7/5 Ned Price, White House spokesperson, said the U.S. determined she died "the result of tragic circumstances of this IDF-led operation"." So, no crime. Everything is cool. Move on. It's time for Biden to go to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv!
US Says Israeli Soldier Likely Killed Her,
but there was
"no reason to believe that this was intentional "
Click here for the statement from the U.S. State Department
Yeah, there was no reason to think it was intentional except all the evidence.
There was no reason for the soldiers to open fire at the journalists other than to kill or injure them.
Did the U.S. representatives interview the members of the Israeli military unit? Were any of their guns seized on May 11 to be used in the investigation? Of course not!
Click here for satirical meme about this farce
Palestine Museum US Unveils Portrait
June 19. Click here for video of the event and the portrait at the museum
UN Human Rights Panel Says Israeli Troops Killed Her
Click here for France 24 report
Israeli Journalist Says Israeli Military Surely Assassinated Her
42 is the Number of Days of Silence by President Biden since nearly Three-Score Members of Congress Ask for an FBI Investigation
June 12 Mondoweiss article Washington Post article
Update June 3 Over 100 prominent artists, and writers condemn killing by Israel of Abu Akleh (signers included Actors Susan Sarandon, Tilda Swinton, Mark Ruffalo, Kathryn Hahn and Steve Coogan and writer Naomi Klein)
Committee to Protect Journalists Cites CNN, AP and Bellingcat reports
Update May 28 Bullet that Killed Abu Akleh came froma Mini Ruger See NoRugers2Israel.org
Update May 19 Israeli Military Announces it Won't Investigate the Killing
57 Democratic members of Congress Write to State Department - Ask for FBI Investigation
Associated Press Report on Shireen's Killing
click here for the AP report
JERUSALEM, Friday, May 13, 2022 (WAFA) – Israeli police today attacked the funeral convoy of slain veteran Al Jazeera journalist as Palestinian mourners carried the journalist’s coffin on their way to the church.
A sizable Israeli police force cordoned off Saint Joseph Hospital, where the body of Shireen Abu Akleh is kept, setting up barricades at the hospital entrances and along the roads where her funeral procession is pass, not allowing Palestinian vehicles or pedestrians to pass.
Mounted police on horseback and scores of heavily-armed police afterward stormed the hospital premises and attacked dozens of mourners who were shouting slogans condemning the Israeli occupation and raising Palestinian flags.
Police attacked with clubs the youth mourners insisting on carrying the coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, on their shoulders to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin in the Old City, where her funeral is set to take place, beating them mercilessly and showering them with skunk water before ultimately allowing a funeral vehicle to carry the coffin without being accompanied by the extraordinary number of mourners.
See the full article on the International Middle East Media Center site
Famed Israeli Journalist Calls Israeli Police "Stormtroopers"
from the article "No Israeli should have slept well on Friday night. Our police are storm troopers. Palestinians have long known this, but Israelis now have to understand this as well: Israel’s police have shed all restraints.
The blue-uniformed policemen and the green-uniformed Border Policemen have become storm troopers in the deepest and most loaded sense of this term; there is no other way of describing them."
Member of Congress
Member of Congress
The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh: Now You’re Appalled?
by Gideon Levy in Haaretz
5/11/22 The relative horror expressed over the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is justified and necessary. It is also belated and self-righteous. Now you’re appalled? The blood of a famous journalist, no matter how brave and experienced she was – and she was – is no redder than the blood of an anonymous high school student who was traveling home in a taxi full of women in this same Jenin a month ago when she was killed by gunfire from Israeli soldiers.
That is how Hanan Khadour was killed. Then, too, the military spokesman tried to cast doubt on the shooters’ identity: “The matter is being examined.” A month has passed, and this “examination” has yielded nothing, and never will – but the doubts were planted, and they sprouted in the Israeli fields of denial and suppression, where no one actually cares about the fate of a 19-year-old Palestinian girl, and the country’s dead conscience is silenced again. Is there a single crime committed by the military that the right and the establishment will ever accept responsibility for? Just one?
Abu Akleh seems to be another story: an internationally known journalist. Just this past Sunday a more local journalist, Basel al-Adra, was attacked by Israeli soldiers in the South Hebron Hills, and no one cared. And a couple days ago, two Israelis who attacked journalists during the Gaza war last May were sentenced to 22 months in prison. What punishment will be meted out to soldiers who killed, if indeed they did, Abu Akleh? Click here to see the full article
Steven Salaita posted on FB:
Western media are trying to make the situation seem ambiguous with their typically passive and opaque language. Fellow journalists were close by and they have reported exactly what happened:
The journalists identified themselves. They were wearing appropriate press gear. They were unarmed. There was no exchange of gunfire. Shireen was wearing a helmet and protective vest. The sniper hit her just below the ear. As Dena Takruri explains, "This was a shot of extreme precision." IDF soldiers continued firing on the journalists, which prevented them from tending to Shireen. Israeli authorities have been harassing Shireen and her family for a long time. The soldiers knew exactly who they were shooting at. They knew exactly what they were doing.
There's nothing ambiguous about this incredible tragedy. It was cold-blooded murder.
Rest in power, our beloved sister.
IDF Sniper’s Cold-Blooded Murder of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera JournalistVeteran Jouranlist, Shireen abu-Akleh wore a Press Vest standing with journalists outside any conflict zone
May 11, 2022 By Richard Silverstein 16 Comments
Oh, the lies. They pour freely forth from the mouths of Israeli leaders and army officers.
Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh murdered by IDF in Jenin
The IDF was in the midst of an operation to kidnap Palestinians suspected of militant activities in Jenin. Several Palestinian journalists were on the scene to cover the operation. Four of them were gathered together. They were nowhere near any firing or conflict. They stood by themselves and were clearly identified by the Press vests and helmets they wore. Shireen Abu-Akleh was shot in the head:
Internationally Known Reporter Killed in Jenin
The Basic Facts about Her Killing
May 11. Israeli forces have shot dead Al Jazeera’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Abu Akleh, a longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed on Wednesday while covering Israeli army raids in the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.
She was rushed to a hospital in Jenin in critical condition, where she was declared dead shortly after, at 7:15am (4:15 GMT), according to the ministry and Al Jazeera journalists. Abu Akleh was wearing a press vest and was standing with other journalists when she was killed.
Another Al Jazeera journalist, Ali al-Samoudi, was also wounded by a bullet in the back at the scene. He is now in stable condition.
Abu Akleh is an American citizen
Associated Press Slain Journalist was Icon of Palestinian Coverage
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