Thousands of Palestinians gather for slain journalist’s Jerusalem funeral amid tensions
Thousands of Palestinian mourners gathered on Friday for the funeral and burial of veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed Wednesday while covering an Israeli military operation in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
A Catholic funeral service was held for Abu Akleh in Jerusalem’s Old City and her body was then to be taken to a nearby cemetery for burial.
Al Jazeera Managing Director Ahmad Alyafei was scheduled to attend the service, as did large crowds of Palestinian mourners. A large Israeli police presence was on hand with tensions running high.
Security forces and members of the public clashed repeatedly as pallbearers carried the journalist’s coffin.
Police had shown up at previous events mourning Abu Akleh’s killing, at which they removed Palestinian flags.
PA refuses to cooperate with Israel, says it will go to ICC
Both Al Jazeera and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have blamed Israel for the journalist’s death, saying soldiers shot her deliberately.
Israel has voiced its desire to conduct a joint investigation into the incident alongside the PA, saying the only way to determine who killed Abu Akleh would be to conduct a forensic examination of the projectile.
The PA has refused the request, saying it will conduct its own investigation and signaling its intention to take the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Israel’s military says it has conducted a preliminary investigation into the incident, nevertheless, but said its results remain inconclusive.
Israel claims Palestinian militants were firing heavy artillery at Israeli soldiers near the spot from which Abu Akleh was reporting and says it is unclear whether she was fatally hit by those militants or Israeli soldiers returning fire.
Other reporters who were with Abu Akleh when she was shot say there were no firefights in the area. All of the journalists present, one of whom was also shot and wounded, were wearing clearly marked protective gear identifying them as press.
Respected journalist covered Israel-Palestine conflict for half her life
A respected member of the local press corps, Shireen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old TV journalist, began work at Qatar-based Al Jazeera in 1997 and attained renown for her coverage of the so-called Second Intifada against Israeli rule in the early 2000s.
Tensions have been high in and around Jenin in recent weeks with militants carrying out a number of deadly attacks in Israel. These have triggered near-daily raids and arrests by Israeli authorities, some of which have in turn led to firefights.
Israeli forces entered the city again on Friday morning, with heavy gunfire and explosions reported. The Palestinian Health Minister reported that 11 Palestinians had been hospitalized with injuries. The Israeli military says it came under fire when it sought to arrest militants, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett later said that an Israeli soldier was killed in the operation.
js/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)