New York (EFE).- The Israeli Army has apologized for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist from the Al Jazeera chain, a year after she was shot in the neck while covering an Israeli military operation in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
According to CNN, this is the first time the Army has apologized for the death of the correspondent, after admitting last year that there was a “high probability” that an Israeli soldier had shot her.
The US network has reported that the attack occurred during an interview with the main spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, on the “Connect the World” network program.
“I think it is an opportunity for me to say here that we are very sorry for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh,” said the military.
“She was a journalist, a very established journalist. In Israel we value our democracy and in a democracy we see great value in journalism and a free press. We want journalists to feel safe in Israel, especially in times of war, even if they are critical of us,” the military chief stressed during the interview.
A death “by mistake”
On May 11, 2022, Shireen – a US citizen – was covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian militias in the West Bank.
The veteran reporter was wearing a bulletproof vest marked “PRESS” when a bullet struck her in the neck, killing her instantly.
Israel conducted an internal inquiry and admitted there was a “high probability” that its forces killed the journalist “by mistake”, but refused to open a criminal investigation, claiming that its troops acted according to protocol while being fired upon by Palestinian militants.
However, there were witnesses who assured that there were no militants in the area near Shireen, and a dozen independent investigations by Palestinian and Israeli organizations and media such as AP, The New York Times or CNN, determined that she was killed by an Israeli shot.
The official investigation of the Palestinian National Authority – which included a forensic examination of the bullet that ended his life – went so far as to affirm that the shot “was deliberate”, while the FBI tried to carry out an investigation with which Israel refused to cooperate.