ALBAWABA - US Colonel Steve Gabavics recently told the New York Times that the former Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was deliberately shot by an IDF soldier while reporting the Israeli occupation in Jenin Camp, West Bank.
The retired US military officer told the outlet that the IDF sniper knew that he was targeting a journalist. However, Gabavics also claimed that the Israeli sniper allegedly didn't know Abu Akleh's identity when he took the shot.
Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in 2022 while reporting on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in Jenin Camp. Despite wearing a blue vest clearly marked with "press," the Al Jazeera journalist was shot dead by Israeli forces.
Initially, Israel denied having a hand in Abu Aakleh's assassination, blaming Palestinian resistance forces instead, but months later acknowledged the fact that she was killed by an Israeli soldier.
Shireen Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted by IDF soldier, US colonel claims
Gabavics stated that Joe Biden’s administration played down the information provided despite the evidence about the intentional shooting, stating further in an interview that he and his colleagues "were just flabbergasted that this is what they put out."
He added on Monday, as part of the New York Times report, that the investigators were divided regarding whether the shooting was deliberate, with Michael R. Fenzel, who is the US Security Coordinator of the Israel-Palestinian Authority, and several other authorities, being involved in the examination.
Gabavics said, "Ultimately, I had to make judgments based on the full set of facts and information available to me,” Fenzel told The Times. “I stand by the integrity of our work and remain confident that we reached the right conclusions."
Who killed Shireen Abu Akleh?
Shireen Abu Akleh (Social media)
According to a 40-minute investigative documentary by Mehdi Hasan's Zeteo, Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by 22-year-old Israeli soldier Alon Scagio in 2022 in Jenin.
According to The Guardian, one of Scagio's comrades said, "He wasn’t happy like, hey – I killed a journalist, of course. But he wasn’t like eating himself from the inside, thinking about what have I done?"
He added, "When you [turn] the corner and you have this second to take a decision, to take a shot and you see someone who holds a camera or something like that pointing at you, you don’t need more than that to shoot the bullet."
