According to a new documentary on the 2022 murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera journalist, the Israeli soldier who fired the fatal shot has been identified. The movie also claims that although the Biden administration first believed that an Israeli soldier had fired at Abu Akleh on purpose, even though the media could identify her, it later said in public that there was “no reason to believe” that her death was “intentional.”
“Who Killed Shireen?,” a documentary produced by independent news outlet Zeteo, follows longtime foreign correspondent Conor Powell and former Wall Street Journal Middle East reporter Dion Nissenbaum as they and other journalists try to determine who killed Abu Akleh and how the Biden administration handled the investigation into her death. American-Palestinian journalist Abu Akleh was a renowned and esteemed Al Jazeera correspondent. In May 2022, she was shot while reporting on an Israeli military action in Jenin that was aimed at terrorists. She was identified as a press member by the protective gear she was wearing at the time of her death.
Israeli officials speculated in the immediate aftermath of her death that she could have been killed by crossfire from Palestinian terrorists engaged in combat with Israeli forces nearby. However, investigations conducted shortly after by CNN and other media revealed that the only militants in the region were unable to get to Abu Akleh from their position at the time of her death. Based on eyewitness accounts and research from specialists in explosive weapons and audio forensics, CNN also came to the conclusion that she was killed in a targeted strike.
While acknowledging that there was a “high possibility” that Israeli fire killed Abu Akleh, the Israel Defense Forces said they would not prosecute any soldiers because there “was no suspicion that a bullet was fired deliberately” at any journalist, and the soldier believed he was shooting at militants who were firing at him. The soldier who killed the journalist “did not do this on purpose,” according to an Israeli military official who subsequently expressed regret for the journalist’s passing.
However, according to a subject who was only identified as a “key Biden administration official” and who was interviewed for the documentary, “it was an indication that it was an intentional killing” because of the soldiers’ and reporters’ location at the time, and the soldier would have been able to see Abu Akleh was a noncombatant.
The alleged Biden administration official claims, “Whether or not they knew it was her or not can very well be debated, but they would have absolutely known that it was a media person or a noncombatant at least.”. “Absolutely knew that it was non-combatant, and every indication was that it was media. It was clear within all optics from that distance and location and the visual capabilities of that day.”
Although a source close to the documentary informed CNN that the person had “direct knowledge” of the Biden administration’s own evaluations of Abu Akleh’s killing, the video does not explain how the individual came to know this information.
According to the documentary, during a military operation in Jenin in June 2024, the purported shooter of Abu Akleh was subsequently murdered by an explosive device buried in the road. In interviews with Israeli media, his family has stated that he died while attempting to rescue military doctors who had been hurt in a separate explosion that was purportedly set off by Palestinian terrorists.
According to a July 2022 State Department review of Abu Akleh’s killing, there was “no reason to believe” that the soldier deliberately targeted her, but the IDF was “likely responsible” for the shooting.
The circumstances for reporters in the area have drastically changed since Abu Akleh’s passing. Al Jazeera was formally prohibited from entering Israel and the West Bank in May 2024, and the IDF briefly closed its headquarters in Ramallah.
Press monitoring organisations claim that since Israel launched its military assault in Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, at least 175 reporters, photographers, producers, and other journalists have been murdered. Israel has asserted in several instances that the journalists who were slain were collaborating with extremist organisations. However, for media professionals, the war in Gaza has turned into the worst battle in history.