Al Jazeera takes killing of West Bank journalist to international court

Media network Al Jazeera said on Tuesday it was referring the May killing of its broadcaster Shireen Abu Akleh to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Al Jazeera’s legal team conducted “a thorough and detailed investigation into the case and unearthed new evidence based on multiple eyewitness accounts, examination of multiple elements of video footage and forensic evidence related to the case,” it said. said the network.

The new evidence “clearly shows that Shireen and her colleagues were directly targeted by the Israeli occupation forces,” she said. Al Jazeera has rejected Israeli authorities’ claim that the shooting was a mistake during a firefight in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

The court in The Hague confirmed on Tuesday that it had received the documents presented by the broadcaster.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted: “No one will investigate Israeli soldiers, and no one can educate us on the morality of waging war, certainly not Al Jazeera.”

Israel does not recognize the ICC and has refused to cooperate with it in the past.

The May 11 shooting caused international concern. Abu Akleh, 51, who was a US citizen as well as a Palestinian, was shot while she was wearing a vest and helmet that clearly indicated she was from the press.

According to the Israeli military, there had been a firefight with dozens of Palestinian militants just prior to the shooting, but the Palestinian state prosecutor’s office accused the soldiers of deliberately shooting at the journalist.

An Israeli military investigation concluded that the source of the fatal shots could not be conclusively identified, but that they were “most likely” fired by mistake by an Israeli soldier.

The United States launched an investigation into the murder in the middle of last month.

At the time, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called the US Justice Department investigation “a mistake”, saying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had conducted a comprehensive investigation.

“I have delivered a message to US representatives that we support IDF soldiers, that we will not cooperate with an external investigation and will not allow intervention in internal investigations,” Gantz tweeted.