Israeli police beat mourners

The United States and the European Union led an international outrage Saturday after Israeli police stormed the burial procession of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and battered pallbearers, nearly causing her coffin to fall.

Thousands of mourners gathered in Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday for the funeral of the 51-year-old Al Jazeera journalist, who was slain during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank two days earlier.

Pallbearers struggled to keep Abu Akleh’s casket from sliding to the ground as baton-wielding police stormed at them, snatching Palestinian flags.

The US was “very concerned” to see photographs of Israeli police intruding on her funeral procession, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

After Abu Akleh was shot in the head in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, Israel and the Palestinians swapped blame. She was dressed in a helmet and a bulletproof vest labelled “Press.”

An early inquiry by Israel’s army found no evidence of who fired the fatal bullet, citing errant Palestinian gunfire or Israeli sniper fire aiming at terrorists as probable explanations.

According to the Palestinian public prosecution, an early investigation revealed that “the only source of the gunfire was the Israeli occupation troops.”

The UN Security Council denounced the death in a rare unanimous statement, asking for “an quick, complete, transparent, and impartial inquiry,” diplomats said.