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In the early hours of Wednesday, May 11, 2022, the world was outraged and shocked to hear the poignant news of Shireen Abu Akleh’s cold-blooded murder. Abu Akleh was the senior correspondent for Al-Jazeera TV in the occupied West Bank who was documenting Israeli forces’ raid of the Jenin refugee camp today. She was directly struck in the head by a gunshot fired by an Israeli army sniper and instantly died before the arrival of medical teams.
According to eyewitness accounts, during Al-Jazeera’s broadcast in the northern Palestinian city of Jenin, Mrs. Abu Akleh was seen wearing a helmet and the bulletproof “Press” jacket. However, the Christian journalist was hit by an Israeli sniper’s bullet, dying as an innocent martyr for beloved Palestine amid her colleagues’ overwhelming sorrow and shock. Also, in a video that has gone viral on social media, one of Shireen’s coworkers can be heard in the background loudly wailing, “She died! Wake up Shireen,” following her tragic murder.
Mrs. Abu Akleh was a valiant and patriotic journalist. She was born in occupied Bayt al-Muqaddas [Jerusalem] in 1970 and raised in the holy city. Nonetheless, her family was originally descended from the ancient Palestinian city of Bethlehem. Shireen earned her bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the prestigious Yarmouk University in Jordan and then worked with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news network.
In the meantime, in the wake of today’s heartbreaking murder of Abu Akleh, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate released a press communiqué, in which it held the Zionist regime fully accountable for the atrocious murder of Mrs. Abu Akleh and the constant violation of the rights of other Palestinian journalists.
The Syndicate also emphasized that today’s incident was a deliberate crime and a premeditated assassination operation, necessitating a concrete and immediate response from the international community to protect fellow journalists from the continuous killing by the Israeli occupation.
Following the cowardly assassination of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Zionist terrorists, Israeli Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir shamelessly said that all Palestinian journalists are legitimate targets of the Israeli military.
“Wherever Palestinian [terrorists!] fire at our forces in Jenin, we must retaliate with all our power and attack them, even if journalists are in the vicinity,” said Ben-Gvir. “Al-Jazeera reporters often stood in the midst of a confrontation to disrupt our forces’ mission,” he brazenly added.
In the meantime, Israel’s notorious army chief of Arab media, Avichay Adraee, has made a ludicrous allegation that Palestinian gunmen may have shot and murdered Shireen Abu Akleh, who was obstructing Israeli troops’ actions!!!
Following Mrs. Abu Alkeh’s murder, various Palestinian factions and personalities declared that they would prosecute the leaders of the Zionist regime for this callous murder before the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging worldwide human rights organizations and the United Nations to adopt a firm stance against this abominable crime perpetrated by the Zionist troops. In a phone conversation with Walid al-Omari, the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Bayt al-Muqaddas, Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement’s political bureau, offered his deep condolences over the cruel murder of Shireen Abu Akleh.
Mr. Haniyeh commended Shireen Abu Akleh’s great heroism and noble death, hailing her as a courageous lady who pledged to bring world attention to the Zionist brutality against Palestinian civilians.
According to Haniyeh, Mrs. Abu Akleh’s legacy will live on perpetually in the hearts and minds of future Palestinian generations, who will continue to struggle until the Zionist invaders are driven out of Palestine.
Haniyeh went on to add that, as guardians of the truth, Palestinian journalists and members of the media would follow in the footsteps of Abu Akleh and other Palestinian journalist martyrs before her, and that all free journalists are fulfilling their patriotic duty by reporting the truth. Abu Akleh’s voice, according to Haniyeh, will eternally be more powerful and louder than the sound of Zionist bullets.
In addition, it was declared publicly that a general strike would take place in occupied Bayt al-Muqaddas to mourn the horrific murder of Shireen Abu Akleh. Abu Akleh’s sad death comes about a year after an Israeli airstrike destroyed the famous al-Jalaa building in the Gaza Strip, which housed the offices of the Al-Jazeera news channel and other media outlets. It is important to mention that during the 2021 Zionist onslaught against the Gazan civilians, 260 Palestinians were martyred, including 66 children.
In Iran, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson vehemently condemned the Zionist regime’s nefarious crime of murdering Abu Akleh as yet another evidence of the regime’s disdain for international conventions and journalists’ immunity. Saeed Khatibzadeh added that Tel Aviv is so terrified of enlightening the world’s public opinion to the point that it is willing to assassinate journalists in broad daylight.
Khatibzadeh also called on international organizations, human rights groups, and media unions to launch an independent investigation into Ms. Abu Akleh’s martyrdom and hold the Zionist regime accountable. The Zionist regime’s promise of a probe into Mrs. Abu Akleh’s killing, according to Khatibzadeh, is a complete hoax and devoid of any legal credibility.
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