A veteran Palestinian American journalist was fatally shot Wednesday morning while covering raids in the occupied West Bank for Al Jazeera, with the broadcaster and another reporter who was wounded in the incident blaming Israeli forces.
The death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known reporter for the broadcast network’s Arabic language channel, sparked immediate outrage in the region and beyond.
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Israel initially suggested she may have been killed by Palestinian gunmen in clashes during the raid, though it later appeared to step back from that claim. Al Jazeera, Palestinian officials and the reporter who was wounded in the incident all said she was shot by Israeli security forces
Al Jazeera said that Abu Akleh, 51, was wearing a vest identifying her as a member of the press when she was killed. The broadcaster accused Israeli forces of the shooting, saying the journalist was “assassinated in cold blood.”
“We pledge to prosecute the perpetrators legally, no matter how hard they try to cover up their crime, and bring them to justice,” the Qatar-based network said in a statement.
Abu Akleh was born in Jerusalem and studied journalism at Yarmouk University in Jordan, though she initially studied architecture, according to an obituary published by Al Jazeera. She is survived by a brother, Tony.
