A YEAR AFTER JOURNALIST’S KILLING, ISRAEL IS CITED
FOR “INACTION”
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
August 2023
In the death of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot
dead during an Israeli army raid in the West Bank, most likely, most observers
believe, by an Israeli soldier, no one has been charged or otherwise held
responsible.
According to Washington Post (May 10, 2023) correspondent Steve Hendrix, “No one
is likely to be charged, according to a new analysis of the killings of
journalists covering Israel and the West Bank over the past two decades. Despite
the international uproar it provoked, Abu Akleh’s slaying has settled into a case
study of Israel’s ability to sidestep accountability.”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) focused on the cases of
20 reporters whose deaths it attributed to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since
2001. No one has been charged or held accountable in any of them. The report
said Israel responded to the incidents by preemptively denying responsibility,
discounting contrary evidence and eyewitness testimony, and carrying out opaque
internal investigations that never led to charges.
“The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh illustrated everything that is wrong with the
process,” said Robert Mahoney, the CPJ’s di-rector of special projects and one of
the report’s editors, “starting with misleading or false narratives put out
immediately that were slowly walked back until we reached the point five months
later when the results of the IDF’s internal probe said there was a high
probability that IDF forces accidentally shot Shireen.”
The report’s authors looked at more than two dozen cases of journalists killed
while reporting in the West Bank and the Ga-za Strip in recent decades. Most of
the reporters killed —-at least 13 according to the report—-were clearly
identified as journalists.
A Reuters camera operator, Fadel Shama, was wearing standard blue body armor
marked “PRESS” and standing beside a car marked “TV” when he was struck by an
Israeli tank projectile in Gaza in 2008, according to an account in the report.
Abu Akleh and her experienced crew were attired in the same sort of marked
protective gear when they were fired on. The surviving crew members told the
Washington Post they had been making an effort, as always, to remain away from
danger and make themselves obvious and unthreatening to the IDF forces in sight.
“Over the following four months,” The Post reported, “Israel’s position shifted
as evidence mounted contradicting its initial claims. In September—-after a
ballistic analysis by the U.S. and video forensic revues by multiple news
organizations…the IDF acknowledged that there was a ‘high probability’ the bullet
was fired by one of its soldiers.”
According to The Post, “All but two of the 20 journalists whose fatalities are
reviewed in the report were Palestinians. More than foreign reporters —-who come
with the backing of international news organizations and, implicitly, their
national embassies—-local reporters often work without support in a hostile and
unpredictable environment. Many say conditions are worse than ever, even those
who covered the bloodiest periods of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Ahmad Mashal, a Jerusalem-based producer for almost thirty years, told The Post
that, “What’s scary now is that you can be killed for no reason….The army, the
police, the settlers, they all have a green light to do whatever they want. I’m
scared to even put my hand in my pocket at a checkpoint.” **
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