Today we mourn, tomorrow we’ll pick up the pieces of our struggle
On Wednesday morning, Palestine woke up to the news that Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned Palestinian reporter for Al Jazeera, had been shot by Israeli regime forces.
Soon after, it was confirmed that she had been killed.
Shireen and a group of fellow journalists were in Jenin, covering an Israeli raid, when they came under fire from Israeli snipers. Shireen was shot in the head. Another journalist, Ali Al Samoudi, was shot in the back.
She had been wearing a press jacket and a helmet. The bullet made its way to an exposed area below her ear. In other words, the shot was very precise and clearly intended to inflict fatal damage.
Shatha Hanaysha, another journalist who was standing next to Shireen when she was shot said the bullets were “sporadic and precise”. “They only shot when one of us moved,” she explained.
As expected, the Israeli regime quickly came up with a PR strategy and claimed that Shireen had been killed by Palestinian fire. They then back peddled and claimed that it was currently impossible to ascertain who shot Shireen, and further investigation was needed. This was despite the fact that there were several witnesses to her killing, including her colleagues.
