Israel Is Changing Its Story on the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh - Again
After Zeteo's film revealed the name of the soldier who killed the journalist, Israel claimed his identity had not been definitely determined. Yet, as we found, it has known who did it for years.
The Israeli military is changing its story on the 2022 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – again.
This time, it’s in response to our new investigative documentary, ‘Who Killed Shireen?’ which revealed for the first time the name of the Israeli soldier who fired the fatal shots.
It is hard to keep the ever-shifting stories straight.
What we do know from eyewitnesses, survivors, and journalists at the scene is that on May 11, 2022, an Israeli soldier shot Abu Akleh in the back of the head while she was trying to cover an Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. She was wearing a blue bulletproof vest that was clearly marked “PRESS.”
The first false Israeli military story was that Palestinian militants firing wildly down an alley had recklessly killed Abu Akleh. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett put out a tweet with a video of the Palestinian militants and a claim that it appeared “likely that armed Palestinians — who were firing indiscriminately at the time — were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist.”
Watch the full ‘Who Killed Shireen?’ documentary here.
Bennett’s allegation was debunked within hours by human rights researchers who went to the scene of the video and discovered that there was no way the Palestinian militants could have shot Abu Akleh.
Then the Israeli military changed its story to suggest that Abu Akleh might have been killed in crossfire during a raging gunbattle between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, making it all but impossible to determine which side fired the fatal shots.
That story also quickly collapsed as a series of independent investigations by the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, Bellingcat, and CNN showed that there were no militants near Abu Akleh when she was killed. The Israeli military never came up with any public evidence that Abu Akleh could have been killed in the crossfire.
Four months after Abu Akleh’s death, the Israeli military released its final investigation.
While making “Who Killed Shireen?” we obtained an unauthorized recording of the background briefing that Israeli Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs provided to foreign journalists about the military’s final investigation into her killing.
Fuchs, then the top Israeli general responsible for military operations in the West Bank, admitted that there were no militants within 100 meters of Abu Akleh when she was killed.
The military reluctantly conceded that it was “highly likely” one of its soldiers falsely identified Abu Akleh as a militant and deliberately shot her.
“The soldier stated from the first instant, where he shot and what he shot,” Fuchs said during the briefing.
“The soldier shot where he intended to shoot,” he said. “He had a misidentification that he regrets… During the investigation, we found an area where it appears that they opened fire at Shireen and killed her.”
Joining Fuchs during the briefing was Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, who was then serving as the Israeli military’s chief international spokesperson. Hecht told the journalists that Fuchs had met the soldier who fired the fatal shots.
"He [Fuchs] met the soldier,” Hecht said. “He told us what he did, and if he did it, it was done by mistake."
Israel did everything it could to protect this soldier. It rebuffed American requests to talk to the soldier. It refused to give the US the soldier’s statement. Israel even refused to give the US the soldier’s name. Israel publicly denounced the FBI for launching an investigation into Abu Akleh’s death, effectively throttling the American effort to determine if she had been murdered.
An independent Israeli journalist named Oren Rosenfeld told us that, a few weeks after Abu Akleh’s killing, he was able to secure an off-the-record meeting with the Israeli soldier who fired the fatal shots. Rosenfeld used his unique military connections to set up the short meeting. Rosenfeld told us the soldier never gave his name and wore a balaclava that covered his face. The soldier admitted to shooting Abu Akleh, Rosenfeld told us, but the shooter said he didn’t know she was a journalist.
Earlier this year, our investigative team tracked down the identity of the shooter. Israeli soldiers who knew the shooter said his name was Alon Scagio. Scagio was killed last June by a roadside bomb planted by Palestinian militants in Jenin, the same West Bank city where, his Israeli comrades told us, he killed Abu Akleh.
According to his obituary, Scagio joined Israel’s elite Duvdevan unit in December 2020 as an 18-year-old who was trained as a sniper. Scagio went through 14 months of training before being sent to the West Bank for the first time in February 2022. Three months later, Israeli military sources told us that Scagio shot and killed Abu Akleh in Jenin.
The Israeli military’s final investigation in September 2022 absolved the shooter of any culpability and announced that no one would face any criminal charges. Three months later, the Israeli military transferred Scagio out of Duvdevan into an elite sniper team with a different unit.
When we reached out to the Israeli military for comment earlier this month before we released ‘Who Killed Shireen?’ their response was that it declined to comment. But then, after the film was finalized, the Israeli military story changed – again.
Now, the Israeli military says, “There is no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting that caused the journalist’s death.”
That is in direct contradiction to what the Israeli military officials told foreign reporters when they briefed them on their investigation’s final conclusions. The Israeli military story went from essentially saying: ‘We spoke to the soldier who killed her and he didn’t mean to do it,’ to ‘we couldn’t figure out which soldier might have killed her.’
I don’t know why the Israeli military is changing its story again. When I asked for clarification, the military said, “[I]t appears that it is not possible to unequivocally determine the source of the gunfire which hit Ms. Abu Akleh.”
The Israeli military could help clear the air by publicly releasing Scagio’s statement to Israeli investigators. Israel could also demonstrate its support for press freedom by releasing Ali Samoudi, the veteran Palestinian journalist who was shot and wounded at the same time that Abu Akleh was killed. Two weeks ago, the Israeli military arrested Samoudi in Jenin. Samoudi appears in ‘Who Killed Shireen?’ and talks about his belief that Israel is trying to silence all scrutiny of its actions in the West Bank and Gaza. Last week, the Israeli military admitted that they do not have “sufficient evidence” to charge Samoudi with any crimes. So, instead of letting him go, Israel decided it would indefinitely hold Samoudi without charge. Freeing Samoudi would be one positive way Israel could show where it stands on freedom of the press.
Dion Nissenbaum, who was part of the investigative team that produced ‘Who Killed Shireen?’ is an award-winning journalist who has spent more than two decades working as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and McClatchy Newspapers.
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Good to know your documentary rattled some cages
If lying and playing the victim were Olympic events, Israel would win every time.