The Israeli police announced on Thursday the closing of an internal investigation into the violence at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in East Jerusalem.
On Friday, May 13, thousands of Palestinians in East Jerusalem participated in the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot on May 11 while covering an Israeli army operation in Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank.
The violence erupted as the Israeli police prevented mourners from raising Palestinian flags and chanting national slogans at the American-Palestinian journalist’s funeral.
The coffin of Abu Akleh almost fell to the ground from the hands of the mourners after they were beaten with batons by the Israeli police, who arrested some of them.
The police said in a statement on Thursday that it had completed the investigation of the police position at the funeral of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, without disclosing the results of the investigation.
“The funeral procession of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was a complex event. We cannot remain indifferent to these harsh images and we must investigate so that sensitive events of this order are not violently disturbed by rioters,” police chief Kobe Shabtai said, according to the statement.
“The police under my instructions investigated to assess the action of its forces on the ground in order to draw conclusions and improve the operational progress in this type of event,” he added, without giving further details.
For his part, Abu Akleh’s brother Anton rejected the police probe into the unrest at her funeral.
“We don’t care what Israel says or does, everything is clear from the photos. The police are the aggressors,” he told the AFP news agency.
“They are trying to cover up their actions and mistakes.”
Also, on Thursday, the Al Jazeera news network released a photo it said it has obtained an image of the bullet used in Abu Akleh’s killing.
It was the first public image of the bullet, which has been a centrepiece of controversy following her death.
Shireen Abu Akleh was born in Jerusalem in 1971 and was one of the first field correspondents for the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel, which she joined in 1997. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media from Yarmouk University in Jordan.
