Al Jazeera Says Reporter Killed by IDF Gunfire in Jenin

YERUSHALAYIM
Al Jazeera Network Support Services in Doha, Qatar.

An Al Jazeera reporter was shot dead during an IDF raid in Jenin on Wednesday, with the news channel and a wounded colleague accusing Israel of killing her and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett saying she may have been hit by Palestinian fire.

Shireen Abu Akleh, 51,a Palestinian-American, was wearing a press vest that clearly marked her as a journalist while reporting in Jenin, the Qatar-based outlet said.

Bennett, in a statement, said that according to information Israel has gathered so far, “it appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were firing indiscriminately at the time — were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist.”

The Palestinian health ministry said she had been hit in the head by gunfire. Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Al Jazeera described her death as blatant, cold-blooded murder by Israeli forces.

“Very sad to learn of the death of American and Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh,” Tom Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, wrote on Twitter. “I encourage a thorough investigation into the circumstances of her death and the injury of at least one other journalist today in Jenin.”

Bennett said the Palestinian Authority had rejected an Israeli offer to conduct a joint autopsy.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said it had proposed to the Palestinian Authority a joint pathological investigation into the reporter’s death. “Journalists must be protected in conflict zones and we all have a responsibility to get to the truth,” he tweeted.

Ali Smoudi, a Palestinian journalist wounded alongside Abu Akleh, said Israeli forces “suddenly opened fire” at them during the operation.

“They didn’t ask us to leave and they didn’t ask us to stop (filming). They fired at us. One bullet hit me and another hit Shireen. They killed her in cold blood,” Smoudi, treated at a hospital in Jenin, told Reuters.

In a statement, the IDF said its troops had shot back after coming under “massive fire” in Jenin.

Israeli military spokesman Ran Kochav told Army Radio that Abu Akleh was close to a group of armed Palestinians who had been firing “imprecisely”.

A U.S. embassy spokesperson in Yerushalayim said Abu Akleh had covered issues in the Middle East and internationally for more than two decades and was “deeply respected by many Palestinians and others around the world”.

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