ISRAEL MURDERS JOURNALIST

Middle East Eye contributor Shatha Hanaysha said she and a group of six journalists, including Abu Akleh, were together when they came under fire from Israeli snipers.

The group of journalists, who were there to cover the raid, came under fire at the main entrance to Jenin refugee camp, near the main roundabout.

There was a gunfight in the alleyways of the camp, but this area is far from the roundabout – fighters don’t go there, because there is no cover – and far from the house of the person Israeli forces wanted to arrest.

Another Palestinian journalist, Al Jazeera producer Ali Samoudi, was shot in the back and was in a stable condition in hospital, the health ministry added.

“We were going to film the Israeli army operation and suddenly they shot us without asking us to leave or stop filming, “The first bullet hit me and the second bullet hit Sherine.

“There was no Palestinian military resistance at all at the scene,” he added.

Al-Samoudi and other journalists at the scene said there were no Palestinian fighters present when the journalists were shot, directly disputing an Israeli statement referencing the possibility that it was Palestinian fire.

Al Jazeera said multiple eyewitnesses confirmed Abu Akleh was shot shortly after arriving in Jenin refugee camp and that there had been no fighting in the area. 

The Israeli army confirmed that it had conducted an operation early on Wednesday in the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups in the northern West Bank.

It said that there was an exchange of fire between its troops and Palestinian fighters and that it is investigating whether “journalists were wounded, possibly by Palestinian gunfire”.

The Israeli military and Israel’s US embassy tweeted a video of Palestinian gunmen in Jenin firing down an alley, suggesting they were responsible. However Israeli NGO B’Tselem visited the scene where that footage was taken, and said it was impossible for Abu Akleh to have been hit from there.

Al Jazeera television accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing its journalist in the West Bank.

Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the “blatant murder” of Abu Akleh, calling it a “heinous crime, through which it is intended to prevent the media from fulfilling its message”.

“We hold the Israeli government and the occupation forces responsible for the killing of the late colleague Shireen,” Al Jazeera said in a statement, urging the international community to hold the Israeli occupation forces accountable for their “intentional targeting and killing” of Abu Akleh.

Israeli military spokesperson Ran Kochav told Army Radio that “even if soldiers shot at – or, God forbid, hurt – someone who was not involved, this happened in battle, during a firefight, where this Palestinian is with the shooters. So this thing can happen.”

Jackie Walker pointed out in a Tweet: Yasser Murtaja, Ahmed Abu Hussein, Basil Faraj, Fadel Shana, Imad Abu Zahra, Issam Tillawi, James Miller, Khaled Reyadh Hamad, Mahmoud al-Kumi & Nazih Darwazeh. All wore clothing identifying themselves as press. All shot by IDF… imagine if Russia did this.

Sherine’s body has been carried through the streets of Jenin, draped in a Palestinian flag and covered with her press flak jacket. Reporters and photographers packed in around the procession – having to cover the death of one of their own.