Following repeated requests the Palestinian Authority agreed eventually to hand over the bullet that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to the United States to carry out forensic tests and find out who fired the fatal shot. PA Public Prosecutor Akram Al-Khatib told Voice of Palestine Radio that the authority had received “guarantees” from the US “that the examination will be conducted by them and that the Israelis will not take part.” However according to an Israeli occupation army spokesman “The test will not be American. The test will be an Israeli test with an American presence throughout.”
The PA feared rightly that the occupation authorities would try to whitewash the killing. They have already rejected eyewitness accounts and the findings of several media outlets including AP CNN the New York Times and the Washington Post that the bullet which killed Abu Akleh while she was covering an Israel incursion in Jenin refugee camp on 11 May was fired by an Israeli sniper.
The head of the Palestinian Initiative Movement Mustafa Barghouti was critical of the PA for handing the bullet over. “The PA betrayed the blood of Shireen Abu Akleh when it handed over the bullet which killed her to the United States” he said. “It was treason by the PA that has saved the Israeli occupation.”
Barghouti described the move as “treason” because he knows that the Americans and the Israelis are as one. “It is impossible for the criminal to investigate his own crimes” he added. “An international commission that does not include Israel should have been formed to conduct forensic tests on the bullet.”
The whitewash fears were realized on Monday when the US State Department said that Abu Akleh was likely shot from an Israeli position but that there was no evidence that the killing was intentional. Moreover “a definitive conclusion regarding the origin of the bullet” could not be reached as “ballistic experts determined the bullet was badly damaged which prevented a clear conclusion.”
This announcement prompted anger among Palestinian officials human rights advocates and Abu Akleh’s family. Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called the investigation a “US-backed Israeli whitewash” before adding that “All investigations published so far conclude that Israel is responsible for the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.”
Nabil Abu Rudeineh a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas said: “We call on the US administration to maintain its credibility and to hold Israel fully responsible for the murder of the martyr Abu Akleh because the Palestinian and international facts confirm the responsibility of the Israeli army without any doubt.”
The Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard said that the killing of Abu Akleh must be investigated as an act of “excessive use of force.” She wrote on Twitter that the “possible absence” of intention” does not absolve Israel of its responsibilities and stressed: “Israel must be held accountable. Justice must be delivered. Journalists must be protected when doing their work. Not a target.”
On the same day that the US announced the findings of its investigation Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that an internal Israeli army investigation “was unable to determine who is responsible for the tragic death of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh but it was able to determine conclusively that there was no intention to harm her. Israel expresses sorrow over her death.”
After all of this the Palestinian factions the PLO and rights groups called for the US to be objective for Israeli to be held accountable and for justice for Abu Akleh and her family to be seen to be done. However in light of Israel absolving of its soldiers of responsibility it seems that the wait for justice for Shireen goes on.
Israel has a track record of this sort of injustice. On 29 October 1956 for example Israeli Border Police (Magav) killed 48 Palestinian civilians: 19 men six women and 23 children aged 8 to 17. The policemen who killed them were tried found guilty and sentenced to long terms in prison. However all were pardoned and released after a very short time behind bars. The police commander on that fateful day was fined just 10 Israeli cents. A pittance even in 1956.
More recently Elor Azaria was an Israeli soldier who was filmed firing a bullet into the head of 21-year-old Palestinian Abdel Fattah Al-Sharif as the young man lay wounded on a street in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in 2018. Azaria walk over to him calmly raised his rifle and fired. He was sentenced to just 18 months in prison and demoted and then released after serving nine months.
On 12 January 2004 Israeli border policeman Taysir Hayb killed a British human rights activist in Gaza. He was sentenced to fourteen and a half years in prison but spent less than half of that in custody.
With regard to Israel’s judicial system and the way it treats Israeli killers B’Tselem is clear: Israeli occupation soldiers or police officers “responsible for harming Palestinians go unpunished and the victims receive no compensation for the harm they suffer.” In the very few cases where members of the Israeli security forces have been prosecuted they were “isolated exceptions [and] serve only to amplify the illusion that the law enforcement systems in place are functioning properly.”
We need to keep this in mind as we call for and wait for justice for Shireen Abu Akleh and her family. Justice for Palestinians under Israel’s brutal occupation is an illusion. Real justice will only come when the occupation is ended and Shireen’s beloved Palestine is independent and free.
– Motasem A Dalloul is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.
