New case filed at ICC over Abu Akle’s death by Israeli army fire

The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have filed a new complaint Tuesday with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on behalf of the family of journalist Shirin abu Akle, who died in May after being shot by the Israeli army during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The lawsuit, filed during the day in The Hague, also includes journalist Ali Samudi, who was wounded in the same incident in which Abu Aklé, a Palestinian-American journalist working for the Qatari television network Al Jazeera, was killed.

“Our team submits the complaint delivered today to the ICC to investigate the killing of Palestinian journalists, including Shirin abu Aklé. There can be no freedom of the press when journalists work in fear,” the IFJ said on its Twitter account.

The event was attended by the president of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Naser abu Bakr, as well as Anton abu Aklé, brother of the deceased journalist. The lawsuit is in addition to the one filed in April calling on the ICC to investigate attacks by Israeli forces against Palestinian journalists.

Although the Israeli military acknowledged in early September that there is a “strong possibility” that a bullet fired by one of its military personnel killed the journalist, it reiterated that they were directed at Palestinian “suspects” who were allegedly in the area.

Following this, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid ruled out investigating and prosecuting the military officer who fired the shot, claiming that he would never promote such measures “just to receive international recognition”, although the United Nations has called for “a criminal investigation in line with the standards of international law”.