A new documentary about the Israeli army’s killing of the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is likely to increase pressure on the Biden administration to ensure that the FBI is permitted to fully investigate her death after Israel said it would not cooperate.
The documentary, Faultlines, by Abu Akleh’s employer, Al Jazeera, is the most detailed account yet of events during an Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Jenin in May.
Through video recordings before and during the shooting, and interviews with other journalists at the scene, the documentary dismantles the shifting Israeli official narrative that at first blamed the Palestinians for killing Abu Akleh and then falsely claimed she was caught in crossfire during a gun battle. Al Jazeera presents video evidence that at least one Israeli soldier was targeting the journalists.
The documentary also raises questions about why the Biden administration embraced Israel’s version of events and resisted an independent US investigation into the killing of an American citizen until pressure from members of Congress forced it to agree to an FBI inquiry.
Video shows Abu Akleh and other journalists gathering at a road junction about 200 yards from an Israeli military convoy. The area is calm as the reporters, clearly wearing large signs identifying them as “press”, advance a few yards down the street toward the Israeli convoy. The first burst of gunfire wounds an Al Jazeera producer, Ali al-Samoudi.
Abu Akleh shouts: “Ali is wounded, Ali is wounded.” She tries to seek shelter behind a tree with another reporter, Shatha Hanaysha. But before she can get there, Abu Akleh is felled by a burst of continuous fire.
When the shooting stops, a clearly distraught Hanaysha can be seen kneeling and reaching out to the fallen Al Jazeera reporter. But as she emerges from behind the tree, another round of fire forces her back.
At that point, Hanaysha did not understand how gravely Abu Akleh was wounded .
“I remember when I saw the blood on the ground, when the blood started coming out, that’s when I realised she had taken a bullet to the head,” she said.
When a young man jumps over a wall to try and pull Abu Akleh out of the line of fire, he is also shot at. He abandons the attempt and instead helps Hanaysha to safety.
The video compilation and eyewitness accounts provide compelling evidence that the Israeli official account of the shooting was riddled with falsehoods. Principally it challenges the claim, which Israel continues to stand by, that Abu Akleh was killed by stray fire in the middle of a gun battle.
The video shows there was no such battle, only bursts of shooting by Israeli forces clearly aimed at the journalists and only them.
The documentary includes a reconstruction demonstrating that, with the typical sights on Israeli guns, soldiers would have clearly seen that the journalists were wearing signs identifying them as press and that they were not carrying weapons