Al Jazeera journalist dead: Today the last goodbye – Mourning in Palestine

The Palestinians are preparing today to say goodbye to Jerusalem journalist Sirin Abu Akleh, which was killed with a bullet to the head two days earlier in the occupied West Bank while covering an Israeli raid.

A 51-year-old Palestinian Christian who was also an American citizen, the journalist of the Al Jazeera television network will be buried in Jerusalemwhere he grew up, after a service in a church in the old town at 15:00 noon.

Thousands of Palestinians pay tribute to Syria on Thursday, a day after her death, at an official ceremony held at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramala of the West Bank. Her body, covered with the Palestinian flag, was transported to where many officials, foreign diplomats and ordinary citizens were waiting for her.

“I came to say goodbye to the one who is deep in our hearts,” said Dua Abu Abu Andi. Sirin Abu Akleh “is not just in every Palestinian home, but in every Arab heart. She is the sister of all Palestinians».

After the ceremony, as reported by the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency, Crowds of people followed the ambulance carrying her body as the crossing between the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the city that has been occupied and annexed by Israel. The vast majority of West Bank residents do not have access to Jerusalem.

Sirin Abu Akleh was killed Wednesday with a bullet in the head in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, a stronghold of various Palestinian militant groups in the North West Bank, where some of the perpetrators of the recent attacks in Israel came from.

The Israeli army was conducting an operation to capture wanted Palestinians.

Al Jazeera accuses Israeli forces of killing journalist “deliberately” and “coldly”despite the fact that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet with the word “press”.

From his side Israel estimated that it was “probably” hit by Palestinian fire but did not rule out the possibility that the bullet came from the Israeli army.

“We need a forensic report from the Palestinians, including the bullet that killed the journalist, in order to conduct a ‘comprehensive’ report,” said Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gandz.

“The voice of Palestine”

«Probably a Palestinian shot her (…) The blow may have come from our side, we are investigating it “he added.

During the ceremony in Ramallah the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas He said he blamed the Israeli authorities “entirely for” Sirin’s death, and denied any wrongdoing.

«“The Israeli authorities have committed this crime and we do not trust them.”he stressed, noting that he wishes to appeal to the International Criminal Court.

A first necropsy– autopsy took place in Nablus, on the West Bank, shortly after her death, but its final conclusion has not been announced.

The death of Sirin Abu Akleh caused wave of sadness and anger in the Palestinian territories, in the Arab worldwhere citizens watched her reports for years, but also in Europe and the USA.

The portrait the journalist, the seventh to be killed in the Palestinian territories since 2018 according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), were holding protesters which took to the streets in Turkey, Sudan and Lebanon, and was shown in a building in Doha.

Many spontaneous demonstrations have taken place in the Palestinian territories since Wednesday to protest her death.. In the Gaza Strip, artists painted her name in sand and painted a mural in her honor. while at the spot where he was killed in Jenin children were left flowers.

On the roof of a house in the central square of Ramala was placed a huge portrait of the journalist along with the message: “Goodbye Sirin, goodbye voice of Palestine.”