Shireen Abu Akleh, noted Palestinian journalist, shot in the head and killed by Israeli forces.
I had seen the report earlier in the day on my Twitter feed so it was kind of shocking to see The New York Times story headline:
As if she died of natural causes or something.
How did Shireen Abu Akleh, a name known throughout the Middle East as an excellent journalist, actually die.
She was shot in the head by the Israeli military.
Some believe she was targeted.
Abu Akleh, was a longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera.
She was killed on Wednesday while covering Israeli army raids in the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.
Rushed to a hospital in Jenin in critical condition, she was declared dead shortly after, at 7:15am (4:15 GMT), according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Abu Akleh was wearing a press vest and was standing with other journalists when she was shot and killed.
It is a sad fact of journalism today that reporters covering war zones are in great danger.
But the death Abu Akleh is different.
Other journalists at the scene said there were no Palestinian fighters present when the journalists were shot, directly disputing an Israeli statement referencing the possibility that it was Palestinian fire.
“We were going to film the Israeli army operation and suddenly they shot us without asking us to leave or stop filming,” said al-Samoudi.
“The first bullet hit me and the second bullet hit Shireen … there was no Palestinian military resistance at all at the scene.”
Shatha Hanaysha, a local journalist who was standing next to Abu Akleh when she was shot, also told Al Jazeera that there had been no confrontations between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army. She said the group of journalists had been directly targeted.
A state funeral procession was held yesterday in the West Bank city of Ramallah, departing from the presidential headquarters and with the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in attendance.
Today Shireen Abu Akleh will be buried in Jerusalem in a cemetery next to her mother.