This Is How ‘Israel’ Officially Changed Its Narrative About the Assassination of Abu Akleh

Calls for an independent investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, senior Al Jazeera journalist, grew amid global outrage.

The Israeli occupation changed its statement about her assassination by Palestinians, in Jenin camp on Wednesday, May 11, and that the Palestinian gunmen had deliberately targeted journalists that morning.

The Israeli forces soon changed their recent claims in the face of international pressures, and the calls for the establishment of an international investigation committee.

 

A Step Back

After the killing of veteran Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, too much pressure was put on the Israeli Occupation.

After blaming Palestinian gunmen for the killing of the journalist, the Israeli army spokesman, Ran Kochav, told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, in response to a question about whether he could confirm that the journalist had been shot by Palestinians, that “I cannot say that, I am not sure. Certainly, I want to be careful and honest.”

The spokesman added in his statement: “We are conducting a professional investigation into the matter; we are checking the angle of the shooting and the bullets. After the investigation results, if there will be any mistake, we will have to apologize to Palestinians.”

After officially announcing the death of Abu Akleh, the Israeli occupation army said in a statement that “the possibility of journalists being shot by Palestinian gunmen is being investigated,” claims that angered the Palestinians and international human rights institutions, especially since all indications indicated that Abu Akleh was shot by an Israeli sniper.

The Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Aviv Kochavi, claimed that “at present, it is not possible to determine the fire that caused the death of Al-Jazeera correspondent Abu Akleh.”

The Israelis began changing their statement about accusing Palestinian militants, when the US ambassador to “Israel,” Thomas Nides, expressed his grief over the killing of the journalist, who was an American citizen too and called for an in-depth investigation into the circumstances of her killing and the injury of another journalist in Jenin.

 

Israeli Defamation

After the Palestinian medical report release concerning Abu Akleh’s death, the Israeli national media staff held consultations, in which delegates from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Israeli army participated, in order to discuss what happened in Jenin, the killing of Al Jazeera journalist, and the adopted Israeli version.

According to Today’s Opinion newspaper, Barak Ravid, a political analyst on the Hebrew Walla website, stated that at the end of the consultations, it was decided to refute the accusations attributed to the army and repel the accusations of "Israel" confirming that Abu Akleh was assassinated by an Israeli sniper's fire, and to try to influence the media around to adopt the Israeli version.

In an attempt to promote its version, influence the international media, and hold the Palestinians responsible for killing Shireen, the Israelis circulated a video taken by Palestinian gunmen, Thursday morning, in which they say that they targeted an Israeli soldier.

Ravid said this video was evidence of Abu Akleh’s injury, claiming that no soldier was injured in Jenin, saying despite the fact that the Israelis often keep silent about what happened to its forces in military operations and campaigns, they insisted on talking about this video.

What refutes the Israeli statements is that Abu Akleh never appears in this video.

 

Endless Procrastination

The Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, was also adopting the same Israeli version about the killing of the journalist in an official statement both in Hebrew and English, in which he said that “there is a possibility that she [Shireen Abu Akleh] was martyred by Palestinian gunfire.”

Shortly after the first video, another one was circulated on social media and news networks including Al Jazeera.

The second video was about the assassination of Abu Akleh in which the sound of heavy gunfire was heard inside residential neighborhoods and between houses, while the journalist was motionless on the ground after being injured.

Media Director of the Palestinian Prisoners Club told Al-Estiklal that “the bullet by which Shireen was killed was of 5.56 mm and this was according to the medical report and was fired from a sniper rifle, only the Israeli army occupation owns these rifles.”

“The Palestinian leadership refused to form a joint committee because we have strong proof that the bullet was fired by an Israeli sniper, and also the clash in the camp was far from the Al-Jazeera area,” he added.

“This was confirmed by more than one video documenting the location of the resistance fighters and that they were far from the area where this horrible crime happened.

“The Israeli army will not admit that it killed Shireen Abu Akleh and will never do, it will simply continue to procrastinate about all its crimes,” the media director said.

“The occupation army killed 4,000 Palestinians during the wars on Gaza, and rejected all international committees, and the case was simply concluded.”

The media director’s statement was actually confirmed by the IDF spokesperson’s statement on Friday, May 14, 2022, in which he announced the interim findings of an army probe into the death of the journalist and said that it was hard to determine who shot the bullet and killed Shireen Abu Akleh.

According to the investigators “there are two likely sources of the fatal gunfire: massive gunfire by armed Palestinians trying to hit the army force, or one of the rounds fired by one of the [Israeli] soldiers.”