The Arab League (LAS) has demanded an international investigation and trial of those responsible for the death of Al Jazeera TV reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed Wednesday morning while covering clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
"The occupation forces seek to bury alive the voice of truth and freedom and uphold humanity and justice through continued aggression and attacks on Jenin and the war declared on the Palestinian people," the pan-Arab organization's general secretariat said in a distributed statement.
The League held the Israeli government fully responsible for "this heinous crime, which requires international intervention and the prosecution of the perpetrators by competent bodies of international justice."
Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head while covering an army raid during which armed clashes broke out between soldiers and Palestinians. Also Ali Al Samoudi, Al Jazeera producer, was injured, whose condition is assessed as stable. As the TV station reported on its Twitter page, both were wearing bulletproof vests marked "press" and helmets when they came under fire. According to some reports, the journalist was killed by a sniper.
The Israeli army said it was looking into information about possible injuries to reporters in a shootout between the Israeli military and armed Palestinians in Jenin. The army press office did not rule out that the journalists were injured by Palestinian militants. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Palestinian authorities have been asked to conduct a joint pathological investigation into the reporter's death.
Abu Akleh was born in Jerusalem in 1971 to a prominent Christian family from Bethlehem. She worked in various media until she joined Al Jazeera in 1997, where she remained until her last moment.
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Based on materials from TASS