The Palestinian Mission to the UN has sent a letter to the Security Council demanding an international independent investigation into the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the UN, said on Wednesday.
"On behalf of the Palestinian mission to the UN, we have sent three identical letters - to the Security Council, the secretary-general and the president of the General Assembly - in which we express our condemnation, and demand an international investigation," he said.
Mansour stressed that Palestine would not agree to a joint investigation with Israel into what happened. According to him, the Israeli version that the journalist might have been killed by Palestinian gunfire is a "fiction and is out of touch with reality". At the same time, the Palestinian observer noted, an international, independent investigation is necessary to rule out "hidden agendas" and "get to the bottom of it."
Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head while covering an army raid during which armed clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians broke out. Also, Al Jazeera producer Ali Al Samoudi was injured, whose condition is assessed as stable. According to the TV station 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, Jewish Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a speech in the Knesset (parliament) on Wednesday that Israeli authorities had called on the Palestinian side to conduct a joint forensic examination and a joint investigation into Abu Akleh's death, but were refused.
The journalist 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.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS