Shireen Abu Akleh: Shot While Wearing the Word 'Press'

Twenty-Five Years

Shireen Abu Akleh did not parachute into Palestine. She lived there. For 25 years, she covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Al Jazeera Arabic, becoming one of the most recognised and trusted journalists in the Arab world. Her face was familiar to millions of Arabic-speaking viewers who watched her report from the West Bank, from Gaza, from the checkpoints and the refugee camps and the streets where the conflict played out in daily life.

She was born in Jerusalem in 1971. She held both Palestinian and American citizenship. She studied journalism at Yarmouk University in Jordan, began her career at a radio station, and joined Al Jazeera in 1997, the year after the network launched. She was there from the beginning.

Abu Akleh covered the Second Intifada, the Israeli incursions into the West Bank, the Gaza wars, and the slow, grinding daily reality of occupation. She was not a commentator or an analyst. She was a field reporter — the person standing in front of the camera, in the place where things were happening, telling viewers what she could see.

May 11, 2022

On the morning of May 11, 2022, Abu Akleh was covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was wearing a blue bulletproof vest with "PRESS" written in large white letters on the front. She was wearing a helmet. She was standing in a group with other journalists, clearly identifiable as press.

At approximately 6:30am, she was shot in the head. She died shortly after. Her producer, Ali al-Samoudi, was shot in the back but survived.

The killing was witnessed by multiple journalists and captured on video. The journalists reported that there was no fighting in the immediate area at the time of the shooting and that the shots came from the direction of Israeli military positions.

The Investigations

Israel initially suggested that Abu Akleh might have been killed by Palestinian gunfire. This claim was contradicted by multiple independent investigations.

An investigation by the Palestinian-American forensic architecture research group Al-Haq and Forensic Architecture determined that she was directly targeted by an Israeli soldier. Investigations by The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press, and Al Jazeera all concluded that the fatal shot came from an Israeli military position.

The United Nations Human Rights Office concluded that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was fired by Israeli security forces, and that "no armed Palestinians were in the vicinity."

Israel eventually acknowledged, months later, that there was a "high possibility" that Abu Akleh was "accidentally hit" by Israeli fire. No soldier has been charged. No disciplinary action has been taken.

The United States — whose citizen Abu Akleh was — called for accountability but took no meaningful action. The FBI opened an investigation in November 2022, which has produced no public result. The Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International USA have criticised the US government for failing to pursue accountability for the killing of an American journalist by a US ally.

The Funeral

Abu Akleh's funeral procession in Jerusalem on May 13 became an international incident. Israeli police charged mourners carrying her coffin, beating pallbearers with batons and causing them to nearly drop the casket. The images — uniformed officers attacking people carrying a dead journalist's body — were broadcast worldwide and drew condemnation from the US State Department and the United Nations.

Thousands attended the funeral at a church in the Old City of Jerusalem. The outpouring of grief reflected not just the loss of a colleague but the loss of a witness — someone who had been present, on screen, documenting Palestinian life for a quarter of a century.

What Her Death Means

Abu Akleh was one of over 200 journalists and media workers killed in the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict since October 2023, according to various counts. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the IDF has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other military since CPJ began documentation in 1992. No one has been held accountable for any targeted killing of a journalist by Israel in over 22 years.

Abu Akleh's case is distinctive not because she was the only journalist killed, but because her killing was so thoroughly documented — by eyewitnesses, by video, by ballistic analysis, by multiple independent investigations — and still produced no accountability. The evidence is not in dispute. The conclusion of every credible investigation is the same. An Israeli soldier shot a clearly identified journalist in the head. No consequences followed.

The word "PRESS" on her vest was supposed to protect her. It was supposed to signal to every armed person in the area: this person is not a combatant, this person is here to document, this person is protected under international humanitarian law. The word did not protect her. It was visible. The shooter could see it. The shot was fired anyway.

Shireen Abu Akleh spent 25 years telling the story of Palestine. Her death, and the impunity that followed, is part of that story.