OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM — The
Israeli occupation forces conceded
for the first time Monday that there was a “high possibility” that an Israeli
solider shot and killed Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
اضافة اعلان
The acknowledgement comes months after Israel’s
initial claim that Palestinian fighters could have killed Abu Akleh. However,
Israel later backtracked and said it could not rule out the possibility that an
Israeli soldier had fired the shot.
“Our conclusion
is that it’s not possible to determine unequivocally which gunfire killed her,
but there’s a higher probability that she was hit by an errant shot of an IDF
soldier who did not identify her as a journalist,” a senior Israeli military
officer said.
Abu Akleh was wearing a bulletproof vest marked
“Press” and a helmet when she was shot in the head during a raid by Israeli
occupation forces in Jenin on May 11.
The
Abu Akleh family on Monday said that Israel had
“refused to take responsibility for the murder” of the journalist, in a press
statement issued in the wake of the Israeli investigation report.
“We remain deeply hurt, frustrated, and
disappointed,” the family said, calling for a “credible” US investigation.
The Palestinian
Authority accused Israel of intentionally killing the reporter in the Jenin
refugee camp, in the northern West Bank.
‘Call for accountability’
A UN investigation concluded
in June that there was “no evidence of activity by armed Palestinians close by”
when Abu Akleh was shot.
The US on July 4 said she was likely shot by Israeli
fire but that there was no evidence her killing was intentional and that the
bullet was too damaged for a conclusive finding.
The US statement outraged Abu Akleh’s family and
Palestinian leaders who accused Washington of failing to seek accountability
from Israel over the killing of the journalist, who also held US citizenship.
“We are
continuing to call for accountability and for justice for Shireen,” Lina Abu
Akleh, the journalist’s niece, said in Washington after meeting US Secretary of
State Antony Blinken.
In May, Israeli media reported that the military had
no plans to launch a criminal investigation, Al Jazeera reported.
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