Thousands of Palestinians participated in the funeral of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who was shot in the head two days ago, while covering an Israeli operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, which is witnessing confrontations.
After it suggested that she was killed by Palestinian fire, Israel returned to say on Friday that it does not rule out that the bullet was fired from the weapon of one of its soldiers. The Palestinian Authority, Qatar’s Al Jazeera and Doha have accused the Israeli army of killing her.
However, the Israeli army announced, on Friday, the results of an interim investigation into the killing of Abu Aqila, and concluded that “it is not possible to determine the source of the shooting” that the Al-Jazeera correspondent was subjected to.
“The interim investigation submitted to the Chief of Staff, General (Aviv) Kochavi, concluded that the source of the shooting that wounded Shirin Abu Akleh and led to her death could not be determined,” IDF spokesman Avichai Adraee said in a tweet.
During Shirin’s funeral, new violent clashes erupted in the Jenin refugee camp, where she was killed on Wednesday, and Friday, during which an Israeli policeman residing in a settlement in the area was killed and 13 Palestinians were wounded during a new incursion by the Israeli army, according to Israeli and Palestinian sources.
In East Jerusalem, clashes erupted on Friday afternoon when the journalist’s coffin was taken out of the hospital, when Israeli police dispersed a crowd waving Palestinian flags outside St. Joseph Hospital. Pictures broadcast by local television channels showed the coffin about to fall to the ground.
But the casket was finally moved to the Old City, where a mass was held in honor of the 51-year-old reporter, at a packed Melkite Roman Catholic church, according to an AFP reporter.
Likewise, the alleys of the Christian quarter around the church were filled with those who came to participate in the funeral of the journalist that grew up in East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied and annexed in 1967.
The Israeli police closed some of the entrances to the Old City, while the crowds walked behind the coffin to the “Zion” cemetery, where the burial was near the Old City.
The Israeli army said on Friday that it was not immediately possible to determine the source of the shooting that led to her death, according to the preliminary results of its investigations, noting that the shooting could have come from a Palestinian or an Israeli source.
Israel demands that the bullet be handed over to her for a ballistic examination, in the presence of Palestinian and American experts.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said, on Thursday, that he holds the Israeli authorities “full responsibility” for the killing of Shirin, refusing to open a joint investigation.
On Thursday, Abbas said, “We hold the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for her killing,” justifying his refusal to open a joint investigation by saying that “the Israeli authorities committed this crime and we do not trust them.” He said he wanted to go to the International Criminal Court.
A first autopsy was conducted in Nablus in the occupied West Bank shortly after the journalist’s death, but no results were announced.
Qatar’s Al-Jazeera channel also accused the Israeli forces of “deliberately” and “cold-blooded” killing the journalist.
She is active in Jenin camp, where armed Palestinian factions were killed in the northern West Bank, and from there some of the perpetrators of the recent attacks in Israel left. The Israeli army said that it was carrying out incursions into it to arrest the Palestinians it was pursuing.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that during a new raid on Friday, the Israeli army bombed a house and wounded 13 Palestinians, two of whom were taken to hospital in critical condition.
The killing of Shireen Abu Aqleh sparked a wave of anger in the Palestinian territories and in the Arab world, where millions of people followed her investigations for more than twenty years, as well as in Europe and the United States.
She is the seventh journalist to have been killed in the Palestinian territories since 2018, according to the “Reporters Without Borders” organization, and her picture was raised in rallies in Turkey, Sudan and Lebanon and on a building in the Qatari capital, Doha, and was widely shared on social media.
Spontaneous demonstrations have taken place since Wednesday throughout the Palestinian territories in protest of her death. In the Gaza Strip, artists carved her name on the sand and painted a mural in her honor, while children laid flowers at the site of her death in Jenin.
On the roof of one of the buildings in the central square in Ramallah, a huge billboard was hung bearing the image of Abu Akleh, with the inscription: “Farewell, Shirin, goodbye, the Voice of Palestine.”