TEL AVIV, Nov 15 Israel will not cooperate with The United States is investigating the death of an Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead during an Israeli army operation in Jenin, West Bank, and will not tolerate interference in its internal affairs, said Defense Secretary Benny Gantz.
The United States on Monday notified Israel that it would conduct its own investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Akle, who was shot dead during an Israeli military operation in Jenin in May this year, Haaretz reported. The investigation opened by the FBI is fraught with tension between the administration of President Joe Biden and the current government of Israel, Axios writes on Monday.
“The decision of the US Department of Justice to investigate the tragic death of Shirin Abu Akle is a serious mistake. The Israel Defense Forces conducted an independent and professional investigation, the findings of which were presented to the American side. I made it clear to the US representatives that we support the soldiers of the IDF, that we will not cooperate with anyone with what external investigation and we will not allow interference in the internal affairs of Israel,» Gantz wrote on his Twitter.
The press service of the Israeli army in September reported that the military prosecutor concluded that there was no justification for opening an investigation by the military police into the incident with the death of Al-Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Akle. It was noted that the ballistic examination found that, due to the poor physical condition of the bullet, it was difficult to determine the source from which it was fired. At the same time, the army reported that there was a possibility that Abu Akle died from a shot accidentally fired by the Israeli military, who assumed that he fired at Palestinian militants, but there was also a possibility that the journalist was killed by Palestinians who opened fire in the direction of the area where she was.
A journalist was killed in early May while covering an Israeli army counterterrorist operation in Jenin in the West Bank. Later it turned out that Shirin Abu Akle was also the owner of American citizenship.
The Al Jazeera TV channel and the Palestinian authorities called for an international investigation into the death of the journalist. The actions of official Washington, in turn, are partly dictated by pressure on the Biden administration from dozens of Democratic congressmen and the Abu Akle family, demanding that the authorities «do more» to bring to justice the perpetrators, in their opinion, the Israeli military.