Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement that Abu Okla was not shot “from indiscriminate shooting by Palestinian gunmen, as the Israeli authorities initially claimed.”
Al-Jazeera news channel reporter with decades of experience covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was fatally shot in the head early in the morning of May 11, while covering an Israeli media outlet. Storming the city of Jenin in the West Bank. Witnesses said the shooting appeared to have come from a convoy of Israeli military vehicles, but Israeli officials initially said she was likely killed by Palestinian fire before returning to her course, saying it was possible that an Israeli soldier had shot her unintentionally.
The UN conclusions – which included the finding that “several seemingly well-aimed single shots” were fired at Abu Akleh and three other journalists from the direction of Israeli forces – mirrored the conclusions of several independent investigations, including a Washington Post review, which found that Israeli forces fired Most likely the fatal bullet.
On Thursday, 24 US senators Sent a letter to President Biden Urges the United States to “participate directly in the investigation” into the killing of Abu Akleh. Noting the lack of progress toward an independent investigation – and the fact that Abu Okla was an American – the letter said the US government “has an obligation to ensure that a thorough, impartial and open investigation into her shooting death is conducted.”
On the day Abu Akleh was killed, IDF spokesperson Ran Kochav first acknowledged the incident in a tweet at 7:45 a.m., saying: “The possibility of journalists being injured is being investigated, possibly by Palestinian fire.”
Later that morning, he told Army Radio that it was “probable” that a Palestinian gunman was responsible. By the end of the day, Defense Minister Benny Gantz retracted those assertions and said an Israeli soldier might also be responsible for firing the fatal shot.
But a week after the killing, the military said it had found no evidence of criminal behavior in the killing, and therefore there would be no investigation by the military police.
“More than six weeks after the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Oqla and the wounding of her colleague Ali Al-Samudi in Jenin on May 11, 2022, it is deeply worrying that the Israeli authorities have not conducted a criminal investigation,” the UN Human Rights Office said in a statement.
mail check – Based on a review of dozens of videos, social media posts and photos of the event, physical surveys of the area and two independent audio analyzes – it was found that an Israeli soldier likely shot and killed Abu Okla. Audio analyzes of what were likely fatal gunshots indicated that a person fired from an estimated distance approximately the same as the distance between the journalists and the IDF convoy.
A Washington Post review found no evidence of Palestinian militant activity in the immediate vicinity of where Abu Oqla and a group of other journalists stood before the killing.
“The perpetrators must be held accountable,” the UN statement said.
Ward Fahim from Istanbul.
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