Thousands of Palestinians said goodbye Friday, May 13, in Jerusalem, to one of their star journalists, Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the head in the occupied West Bank while covering an Israeli military raid, against a backdrop of persistent violence.
On Friday, a tide of people attended his funeral in Jerusalem. Violence broke out when the journalist’s coffin was taken out of the hospital. Israeli forces broke into the grounds of St. Joseph’s Institution in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city occupied and annexed by the Jewish state.
Images broadcast by local television show the star reporter’s coffin nearly falling to the ground as Israeli police disperse the crowd waving Palestinian flags.
Wave of emotion in the world
« If you don’t stop these nationalist chants, we will have to disperse you using force and we will prevent the funeral from taking place », called an Israeli policeman through a megaphone in the direction of the crowd, according to a video released by the police. According to her, » hundreds of people « gathered at the hospital and stones were thrown at the police who were “forced to use riot dispersal means”.
‘Brutal Israeli special forces attack Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral procession leaving St. Joseph’s Hospital’notably denounced on Twitter Hanane Achraoui, a historical figure of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). « Israel’s inhumanity is on full display »she also claimed.
Shireen Abu Akleh’s coffin was eventually transported to the Old City, where a mass was held in a packed Greek Catholic church, before burial in a nearby cemetery. The alleys of the Christian quarter on its outskirts were overflowing with onlookers who had come to attend the funeral of the 51-year-old American-Palestinian reporter, who had grown up in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city occupied and annexed by Israel. The crowd followed the coffin to the cemetery.
Violence in Jenin
The funeral of the Palestinian journalism icon comes as fresh clashes erupt near and in the Jenin camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions, from where perpetrators of deadly attacks in recent months in Israel originated . In this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the Israeli army has launched several operations to apprehend, according to it, wanted Palestinians.
On Friday, an Israeli soldier was killed during an operation in Burqin near Jenin “against terrorists”, according to an official statement. In the Jenin camp, thirteen Palestinians were injured, two of them seriously by gunshot, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
In the region of Jenin in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, clashes broke out during a new operation by the Israeli army; one Israeli soldier was killed while thirteen Palestinians were injured, according to official sources. It was in the Jenin refugee camp that the journalist from the pan-Arab channel Al-Jazeera was fatally injured. She wore a bulletproof vest with the logo » hurry « and a reporting headset.
The death of this reporter, icon of Palestinian journalism, has aroused a wave of emotion in the Palestinian territories, in the Arab world where her reports have been followed for more than two decades, in Europe and in the United States.
Shireen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Christian Palestinian who also has American nationality, was shot in the head while covering an Israeli operation in the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
Israel, after saying that she had » most likely « succumbed to Palestinian fire, said he did not rule out that the bullet was fired by his soldiers. The Palestinian Authority, Al-Jazeera and the Qatari government accused the Israeli army of killing her.