Shireen Abu Akleh, famed Al Jazeera journalist and veteran reporter, was murdered on May 11 when Israeli occupation forces storming the Jenin refugee camp, north of the West Bank, shot her with a live bullet to the head as she was covering the events of the storming.

The Washington Post examined more than 60 videos, social media posts and photos of the murder, conducted physical inspections of the area, and also commissioned two independent acoustic analyses of the gunshots. 

The review, the paper says, concludes that Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli soldier in the convoy that was near them. Although the IOF claims that their fire was directed toward a Palestinian gunman standing between them and the journalists, the journalists who were with Shireen on that fateful day say there were no gunmen there.

The Israeli military, according to the Post, has not released any evidence that there was a gunman, and that available video and audio evidence actually disputes claims by the IOF that there was an exchange of gunfire in the minutes before Abu Akleh was murdered. 

Furthermore, eyewitnesses have said that there was no firefight at the time.

Audio Analysis

The analysis performed on audio evidence of the gunfire that murdered Shireen Abu Akleh suggests that someone shot her from an estimated distance that matches the distance between her and the IOF convoy. 

From the IOF convoy’s position, roughly 182 meters away, the journalists’ PRESS jackets would have been visible. At least one of the Israeli soldiers was using a telescopic scope, according to the IOF’s news release, and a live TikTok stream filmed seven minutes before the shooting shows a relatively calm scene.

Read more: The assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh and my field testimony on the Israeli occupation's "investigations"

The Post questioned the IOF regarding the findings, and the occupation forces responded by saying they “will continue to responsibly investigate the incident, in order to get to the truth of this tragic event. The bullet is vital to reaching a conclusion as to the source of the fire that killed Ms. Abu Akleh, and it is an important source for reaching an evidence-based conclusion. The Palestinians continue to refuse the IDF’s offer to conduct a joint forensic examination of the bullet, with American representation.”

The IOF Chief of General Staff further added in a statement to the Post: “There is one thing that can be determined with certainty: no IDF soldier deliberately fired at a journalist. We investigated this. That is the conclusion and there is no other."

The IOF also did not provide any evidence to suggest how it arrived to that conclusion.

Video footage

One video acquired by The Washington Post shows Ali Al-Samoudi, an Al Jazeera news producer, moving hurriedly after the first burst of gunshots was heard. Following a second burst, journalist Shatha Hanaysheh calls for an ambulance after Shireen had been shot. 

The IOF was also shooting at anyone attempting to get close to Abu Akleh’s body to aid her.

A group of men attempt to reach the two journalists by crossing the street for nearly a minute, as a fourth burst of at least nine gunshots erupts in rapid fire. One man, who is already across the street, climbs over a crushed wall to reach Abu Akleh and Hanaysheh. As the man grabs Abu Akleh’s arm, in what appears to be an attempt to move her, another shot goes off. He runs back against the wall and crouches down. He ushers Hanaysheh away from the scene, back over the crumbled wall before helping to carry Abu Akleh’s body from behind the tree into the back seat of a car.

Audio forensic analysis

Steven Beck, an audio forensic expert who worked as a consultant for the FBI for more than a decade, analyzed the gunfire heard in the video footage. He found that the first two bursts were shot from almost exactly the distance between the journalists and the IOF.

A second analysis, conducted by computer modeling built by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, roughly aligned with Beck’s findings.

Previous investigations

Palestine's Attorney General Akram Al-Khatib announced on May 26  that an Israeli soldier shot and killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, clarifying that the bullet hit her directly in the head.

During a press conference, he held after presenting the results of the investigation to the chief of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, Al-Khatib explained that Abu Akleh was hit with an armor-piercing round.

He also added that the round that was fired on Abu Akleh appears to be from a semi-automatic sniper rifle, moreover, the investigative team has conclusive evidence that the targeting of martyr Abu Akleh and the reporters that were with her was direct and deliberate.

Al-Khatib stressed that the investigation into Abu Akleh's martyrdom was undertaken exclusively by Palestinians, and the investigative team refused to share so much as a picture of the projectile to deprive "Israel" from the opportunity to spin lies.

CNN had previously investigated Abu Akleh's murder, and concluded that Israeli occupation forces deliberately murderd her, and that she was killed by an Israeli sniper. 

Yousef Jamal Al-Rantisi, a forensic expert and manager of the Gaza Center for Human Rights, released a forensic analysis of the evidence related to Abu Akleh's murder on May 19, which concluded that she was deliberately shot and killed by an Israeli occupation forces sniper.