This week marks one year since an Israeli soldier killed the Palestinian American journalist with a single shot to the head while she was reporting from the city of Jenin. For her former colleagues, her absence is as dominating as her presence once was.
In the year since her death, Abu Akleh’s family has demanded an independent investigation — and justice. The U.S. government pledges to protect its citizens and media freedoms. But Abu Akleh’s family is still waiting.
“Accountability means anyone and everyone involved in Shireen’s killing, whether it’s from the soldier who pulled the trigger all the way up to the chain of command, that they’re all held accountable,” Lina Abu Akleh, Shireen’s niece, said by phone. She spoke from the predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem, where the family is from. “It also means transparency. That the full truth about what happened to Shireen is public.”
No one has been held accountable for Abu Akleh’s killing to date. While Israeli officials quickly closed the case, declining to bring charges, the most significant movement has so far come from the United States. Last fall, the FBI launched an investigation last fall following a sustained public pressure campaign, including by members of Congress; that probe is ongoing. Meanwhile, the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, the liaison on security issues in the region, has delayed issuing its own report into the killing.
But the United States has done little to advance the cause, and if anything, has backed off. In September, Price said the top U.S. diplomat was “not looking for criminal accountability” after the U.S. and Israeli investigations found Abu Akleh’s death “the tragic result of a gunfight.” Accountability in this case, he said, meant “steps put in place” so “the possibility that something like this could happen again is profoundly mitigated.”
The response is not good enough for some members of Congress, who in letters and legislative amendments have pressed for an independent investigation into why a U.S. citizen and journalist was gunned down with apparent impunity. Nearly half of Democrats in the Senate signed a letter to Biden in June reiterating the United States’ “obligation to ensure that a comprehensive, impartial, and open investigation into her shooting death is conducted.”
Some in Congress are also calling for full transparency around two government reports in the works, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Post on Monday. An FBI investigation is underway, with which Israel said it would not cooperate. The USSC recently submitted a report to the State Department — but Van Hollen said the State Department plans to make “unspecified changes” before sharing it with Congress. Last week, he sent a letter to Blinken calling for the release of the unedited version.
When Abu Akleh was shot on May 11, 2022, she was wearing a clearly marked press vest in an area with no active fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters. (Israel initially claimed that she was killed at the scene of a firefight, a claim that was quickly debunked.) In the weeks following her killing, half a dozen independent reviews, including one by the United Nations, found that Israeli forces were responsible. Last July, Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and the U.K.-based research agency Forensic Architecture released a detailed reconstruction of the shooting, which concluded that Abu Akleh had been deliberately targeted.
Last July, the USSC, the U.S. security coordinator in the region, issued a cursory statement on the killing that sparked widespread condemnation and questions about the office’s independence. Since then, the coordinator has launched a new review of the killing, which has included a meeting with members of Forensic Architecture and Al-Haq earlier this year.
Following a formal request by Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, the security coordinator was expected to provide a classified congressional briefing on his office’s investigation of the case. That never happened, and a report by the coordinator, which was expected to be released earlier this year, has also been delayed. During a press briefing last week, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the USSC “has not changed” the conclusions it had reached last summer, “which is that [Israeli Defense Forces] gunfire was likely the reason, unintentionally.”
In a letter published last week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who has consistently raised Abu Akleh’s case, criticized the delay and reiterated a request for the report to be released. “Most recently, we were informed that, before congressional release of the USSC Report is authorized, the Administration plans to make unspecified changes to its contents,” Van Hollen noted. “While the Administration has characterized its proposed changes as ‘technical,’ any actions to alter the USSC’s Summation Report in any way would violate the integrity of this process.”
The State Department declined to comment on government communications about the report. “We are determined to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future and continue to engage with Israel in this regard,” Patel wrote in an email.
While the United States has called for “accountability” in last year’s killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Washington’s position on the incident has been marred by inconsistencies.
The US government’s definition of “accountability” has shifted over time, as has its position on the need for an independent investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot by Israeli forces a year ago.
Despite the lack of accountability, many members of both the U.S. government and the U.S. media seemed to have moved on, lamented Hatuqa. She noted that at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last week, President Joe Biden spoke of journalists Austin Tice, who has been missing in Syria since 2012, and Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia. Biden made no mention of Abu Akleh. Neither did Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, at a recent event commemorating World Press Freedom Day.
Abu Akleh’s advocates face an uphill battle keeping her high-up on Washington’s agenda as the Biden administration tries to keep strong ties with Israel while contending its far-right government — and as a new phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unfolds. Abu Akleh was one of nearly 150 Palestinians killed in 2022 by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 94 more have been killed as of May 1, according to the United Nations, the highest rates in years. At least 17 Israelis and one foreign national have been killed in Palestinian attacks. Grimly, the anniversary of her death comes amid another deadly escalation in Gaza.
“The 2022 assassination of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli security forces remains unpunished, despite strong pressure from the international community and the Israeli authorities’ admission,” Reporters Without Borders stated.
Since 2001, more than 21 journalists have been killed in what is seen as a “deadly pattern,” according to the latest report by the Committee on the Protection of Journalists (CPJ).
But the number may be much higher. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Information, at least 45 Palestinian journalists have been killed since 2000, while the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate puts the number at 55. Since 2018, and in the span of five years, Israeli forces have injured at least 145 Palestinian journalists. This is not even counting the assaults on journalists during field coverage. Israeli forces and settlers have assaulted and detained international journalists, including journalists on assignment for the BBC, CNN, and the New York Times.
“One year on, not one question about Shireen’s murder has been addressed by the U.S. government. Congress has sent letters and asked for confidential hearings, while her family, media outlets and press freedom, journalists’ and human rights organizations have worked to expose what really happened and who is responsible. Accountability is achievable, but requires the Biden Administration to fulfill its own responsibilities to protect American citizens’ lives and bring the perpetrators to justice,” said Shapiro.
A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented that the Israeli military has taken no accountability for the killings of at least 20 journalists, 18 of whom were Palestinian, over the past 20 years. The report reveals a pattern of impunity that undermines press freedom, with the majority of the journalists killed being clearly identified as members of the media at the time of their death.