The UN Human Rights Office reported this Friday that “all the information compiled” by its independent investigators suggests that Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who died in May in the Palestinian city of Jenin, was shot. of Israeli security forces. “The shots did not come from armed Palestinians, as the Israeli authorities initially defended,” the spokeswoman for the UN office Ravina Shamdasani added today at a press conference, who considered it “alarming” that Israel has not yet launched a criminal investigation into the murder.
According to Shamdasani, the investigation by the office led by High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet until August 31 has used information from the Israeli armed forces and the Palestinian Attorney General’s Office, which, among other things, do not show that there was armed activity by Palestinian groups in the crime scene. The agency’s experts also visited the area where the murder took place on May 11, examined photographic video material and interviewed witnesses, the spokeswoman added.
Abu Akleh, according to the office’s final report, arrived with six other journalists at the western entrance to the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank to cover a raid by Israeli security forces, which had degenerated into clashes. violence between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.
The journalists working alongside Abu Akleh that day claimed that they proceeded in such a way that their movements were visible to Israeli forces and away from areas of Palestinian armed activity, but despite this they received no warning before the journalist was hit by gunshots. Abu Akleh, who like the rest of her wore a vest indicating that she was a journalist, was hit in the head, despite wearing a protective helmet, the independent UN investigation concluded.
Shamdasani spokeswoman recalled that since the beginning of the year the office of High Commissioner Bachelet has verified the murder of 58 Palestinians, including 13 children, by Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
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