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‘Not About Justice’: Advocates Slam US Line On Shireen Abu Akleh Killing

Published

4 years ago

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Palestinian rights supporters say the US assessment aims to sweep the issue under the rug ahead of President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.

Washington, DC – The Biden administration’s handling of the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has infuriated Palestinian rights advocates who say Washington continues to ensure impunity for Israeli abuses even when they target journalists and United States citizens.

The US Department of State announced on Monday that gunfire from Israeli positions “was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh”, but it dismissed the incident as the unintentional “result of tragic circumstances”.

The statement added that the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist came as Israeli forces were conducting a “military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad on May 11, 2022, in Jenin, which followed a series of terrorist attacks in Israel”.

“The State Department’s statement was an effort to split the difference between both sides,” said Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian-American analyst and senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC. “And instead of coming down on the side of truth, they came down on the side of equivocation. They really had an opportunity to take a stand and do the right thing, but they clearly failed to do so.”

Advocates took issue with the timing, wording and structure of Monday’s statement. For instance, the announcement was made public on July 4 – US Independence Day – a major national holiday when many people are spending time with their families and not focusing on the news.

The statement opened with proclaiming that the origin of the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was inconclusive.

“After an extremely detailed forensic analysis, independent, third-party examiners, as part of a process overseen by the US Security Coordinator (USSC), could not reach a definitive conclusion regarding the origin of the bullet that killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh,” the State Department said.

“Ballistic experts determined the bullet was badly damaged, which prevented a clear conclusion.”

‘Analytic’ conclusion

State Department spokesperson Ned Price stressed on Tuesday that the USSC, a State Department-led office that oversees international security assistance and coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA), did not conduct its own probe, but that its conclusion was a “summation” of investigations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Last week, the Biden administration offered to examine the bullet that killed Abu Akleh after the Palestinian Authority had refused to hand it over to Israel.

Pressed on how the office was able to determine intent – or lack thereof – when it did not conduct its own investigation or interview the shooter, Price said: “The USSC was granted access to the IDF [Israeli military] investigation, just as the team was granted access to the PA investigation. So this summary of the investigations … led the USSC team to this finding that the bullet likely emanated from an IDF position, and that the tragic killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was not in fact intentional.”

He added that the conclusion was “analytic” not “scientific”.

Press freedom and rights groups as well as lawmakers in Washington have been calling for a comprehensive, independent or US-led investigation into the killing.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a US-based watchdog, reiterated those calls and urged accountability for the killing of Abu Akleh on Tuesday.

“The US should either take the lead in investigating Abu Akleh’s death in a fully credible and transparent manner, or it should support international efforts to seek justice on behalf of her and her family,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, said in a statement.

Washington has already rejected the International Criminal Court’s involvement in the case.

Independent probes blame Israel

Eyewitnesses and multiple investigations by US media outlets, including CNN, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the New York Times, have previously concluded that Israeli forces fatally shot Abu Akleh.

A probe by the Palestinian Authority also found that Abu Akleh was deliberately shot by Israeli troops. After the incident, Al Jazeera Media Network accused Israeli forces of assassinating the journalist “in cold blood“.

Investigations and video evidence show that there were no armed Palestinians in the area where Abu Akleh was killed, and that she and other journalists were in identifiable press gear.

Israeli forces continued to shoot in the direction of the area where Abu Akleh was standing after first injuring her colleague Ali al-Samoudi, even as no fire was being returned. The Israeli bullets kept flying after Abu Akleh was killed as colleagues and bystanders attempted to retrieve her body.

Still, the US statement emphasised that the Israeli raid was targeting Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in response to past attacks by Palestinian assailants.

“Mentioning the militants was a way to reinforce the preferred Israeli narrative that they were acting in self-defence,” Munayyer, of the Arab Center Washington DC, told Al Jazeera. “But shooting a journalist in the head is in no way an act of self-defence, no matter what other circumstances are involved.”

He added that the administration is addressing the killing of Abu Akleh as a political issue – “not about justice”.

Munayyer said Washington wanted to sweep the incident under the rug “as swiftly and as neatly as possible” ahead of a visit by President Joe Biden to Israel and Saudi Arabia later this month.

“With their statement, they really missed the mark. And this issue is not going away as much as the Israelis might want to make it go away,” he said of the killing of Abu Akleh.

‘Systematic’ mistreatment of Palestinians

Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington-based think-tank, noted that Abu Akleh is the second US citizen to be killed by Israel this year. Omar Assad, an elderly Palestinian American, died after being arbitrarily detained by Israeli troops in the West Bank in January.

Echoing Munayyer’s comment, Berry said the US administration appears to have wanted to “tie up loose ends” before Biden travels to Israel next week.

“But the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is not a loose end; the killing of Omar is not a loose end. These are issues that are systematic of the way that Israel treats Palestinians, whether they are Americans or not,” Berry told Al Jazeera.

“So, we have before us a very real problem – and that is an administration that does not seem to engage sufficiently on this issue. Therefore, the status quo is allowed to continue.

“The situation is deteriorating on the ground every single day for Palestinians. And then on top of that, we have these cases of individual Americans who have been killed,” she said.

Berry expressed “complete disappointment” with the administration’s response to the killing of Abu Akleh “from day one”. She stressed that the US is not an impartial player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; rather, Washington enables Israeli abuses with “unequivocal blind support, both financial and political”, she said.

Israel receives $3.8bn in US military support annually.

Biden
President Joe Biden is set to visit Israel and Saudi Arabia between July 13 and 16 

Berry called for increased civic engagement and intensifying calls for an investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh.

Other Arab-American advocates are already warning Democrats that Biden’s policy on Israel-Palestine may affect how the community will vote in the crucial midterm US elections in November.

Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), an advocacy group, said most Arab Americans don’t live in a “fantasy world” thinking that Biden’s Democratic Party can bring justice to Palestinians, noting that most Democratic politicians “won’t even defend and call for accountability for US citizens like Omar Assad and Shireen Abu Akleh”.

“Immigrants, Black people, Arabs and other oppressed communities of colour voted for the Democrats in the last national election, yes, but those were votes against [former President Donald] Trump more than they were votes for Biden or the Democrats,” Abudayyeh said. “Neither choice is very great for us these days.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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Foreign

Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

Published

3 years ago

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15th January 2024

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Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

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10th October 2023

By

Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

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US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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