A Palestinian citizen chose to name his twins, Shireen and Jenin, after the name of the Al-Jazeera correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, who lost her life with a bullet to her head during her fieldwork in the city of Jenin, in the northern West Bank on Wednesday.
The image of the two children widely circulated on social media, they were photographed in a dress bearing the image of the late journalist wearing a protective press jacket, and their names with the signature “Occupied Palestine is with you from the heart, Shireen Abu Akleh.”
According to Palestine daily Samanews, Muhammad Abu Thabet, the twins’ father, said, “On the day of the martyrdom of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, my wife birth to twins, so I immediately decided to name them (Shireen and Jenin), after her, place of advancement and loyalty to her career.”
He indicated that he was greatly affected and shocked by the martyrdom of Abu Akleh pointing out that his parents cried for her.
30-year-old Jamal Harbi Omran from the town of Burin, north of Nablus, named his daughter ‘Shireen’ who was born on Wednesday, May 11.
Like Muhammad Thabet and Jamal, many Palestinians named their newborn daughter Shireen. Activists on social media indicated that many others are expected to name their newborns after her, to stress that a “Shireen is born every day”.
On Wednesday, May 11, journalist Abu Akleh was martyred after being shot by the Israeli occupation army in the city of Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank.
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.
