Israel’s changing accounts of what happened when Shireen Abu Akleh was killed

• Shireen Abu Akleh was killed on May 11.
• The Israeli government and military story has changed multiple time.
• The shooting in Jenin was instantly attributed to Israeli forces.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a seasoned Palestinian journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed on May 11. The Israeli government and military story on the incident has changed multiple times over the previous few months.

The shooting in Jenin was instantly attributed to Israeli forces by witnesses, including Al Jazeera journalists. This assertion was supported by multiple investigations by media outlets, human rights organizations, and the UN.

The most recent attempt by Israel to deflect blame was its announcement on Monday that a military investigation had found that it was “very plausible” that one of its soldiers had fired the shot that killed Abu Akleh. The military, however, disallowed further investigation, claiming there was no indication of a criminal offence.

This stance is a departure from earlier Israeli accounts of the massacre, which asserted that several accounts of what occurred were offered.

The timeline of Israel’s evolving story is as follows:

The Palestinians are to blame.

Armed Palestinian fighters were identified as the “likely” assailants by Israel’s foreign ministry and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett shortly after Abu Akleh’s murder.

To support their accusations, the prime minister’s office even posted a video of Palestinian militants shooting in the camp. The Israeli human rights organization B’tselem quickly refuted the video, claiming that the shooters were in a different area of the camp and that no Palestinian fighter was in the area where Abu Akleh and her friends had gathered.

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