Al Jazeera claimed that Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli forces when it presented her case to the International Criminal Court on Tuesday.
The Palestinian-American was shot while covering an Israel army raid in Jenin on May 11 and the Qatar-based channel claimed to have “unearthed new evidence” regarding his death.
A complaint can be submitted for investigation by any individual or organization to the ICC prosecutor; however, the Hague-based court is not obligated to handle such cases.
“New witness evidence and video footage (that) clearly show that Shireen and her colleagues were directly fired at by the Israeli Occupation Forces,” Al Jazeera stated in its submission.
The channel stated, “The claim by the Israeli authorities that Shireen was mistakenly killed in an exchange of fire is completely unfounded.”
A journalist from the AFP saw a lawyer for Al Jazeera enter the headquarters of the International Criminal Court to hand over their submission.
Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and disputes the court’s jurisdiction, so the ICC launched a probe into war crimes in the Palestinian territories last year.
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Israel stated that it would not cooperate with any outside investigation into the death of Abu Akleh.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid stated, “No one will investigate IDF (Israeli military) soldiers and no one will preach to us about morals in warfare. Certainly not Al-Jazeera.”
On September 5, the Israeli military acknowledged that one of its soldiers likely mistakenly shot Abu Akleh for a militant.
When the veteran Christian reporter was shot in the head in the Jenin refugee camp, a historic flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she was wearing a bulletproof vest marked “Press” and a helmet.
In the wake of getting objections from people or gatherings, the ICC examiner chooses freely what cases to submit to decided at the court.
Judges decide whether to allow the prosecutor to conduct a preliminary investigation, which may be followed by a formal investigation and, if necessary, charges.
According to the International Criminal Court (ICC), such complaints rarely result in investigations.
Source: AFP
