AMMAN —
Jordanians woke up Wednesday to the shocking news that veteran Palestinian journalist
and war correspondent
Shireen Abu Akleh was gunned down by Israeli occupation
forces while covering a raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
اضافة اعلان
Tributes to the
51-year—old whose face was familiar to millions of viewers — immediately started
to pour on social media platforms. The heart-breaking video of the cold-blooded
murder went viral and Jordanians from all walks of life were quick to express
their indignation at yet another Israeli crime.
Abu Akleh was
born in Jerusalem, but she had a strong affinity with Jordan, where she studied
journalism and political science, obtaining the bachelor degree from Yarmouk
University in 1991.
University
President Islam Masad and members of the teaching faculty and student body
expressed sorrow at the death of the former student.
Abu Akleh became
a familiar face for many Jordanians after she joined Al-Jazeera network in
1997, reporting from the occupied Palestinian territories where she covered the
second
Palestinian Intifada, in 2000, the 2003 Israeli re-occupation of West
Bank towns and villages, as well as the almost daily confrontations between
Israeli occupation soldiers and Palestinians, among others.
Journalist and
academic Mohammad Al-Mohtaseb told
Jordan News that he knew Abu Akleh
from the years she was a student at the Faculty of Mass Communication at
Yarmouk University.
He said that “she
was one of the most hard-working students whose smile never left her face who loved journalism from all her heart, and
gave it all her energy”.
She was killed
“because she exposed the Zionist crimes to the whole world”, said Mohtaseb.
Nidal Mansour, president of the
Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists, told
Jordan News that “the murder of Abu Akleh is but the
latest in a series of heinous crimes committed by the occupation forces against
journalists, and the Palestinian people in general”.
“Of course, this
is not the first crime committed by the occupation forces among journalists;
statistics indicate that since 1972, they have killed 103 journalists and
wounded more than 7,000, and demolished several Palestinian and international
media institutions,” he added.
Mansour stressed
that “the occupation forces must be held accountable for these crimes and
international institutions should form a fact-finding committee to assess how
the journalist was assassinated, especially since her killing appears to have
been deliberate”.
Rana Sabbagh,
senior
MENA editor at Occrp.org and co-founder and former executive director of
Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, told
Jordan News that “Abu
Akleh was dedicated, professional, and extremely respectful”.
“She was and will
remain for me a role model for the professional, serious, and respected
journalist that I cherish,” she added.
“An international
investigation into the manner in which she was killed must be carried out and
if it is proven that she was killed intentionally, the perpetrators must be
punished,” she said.
A former Abu
Akleh university colleague, Professor of journalism and media at the Arab Open
University Sulafa Al-Zoubi, told
Jordan News that she met Abu Akleh, who
was in her third year, when she first went to university.
“She was a
helpful person with a great character, who was loved by everyone who met her.”
“She was a hero and a
wonderful journalist who was not afraid to tell the truth,” she said.
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