New film claims to identify Israeli killer of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
A new US-made documentary has produced evidence pointing to the identity of an Israeli soldier who shot dead the Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022.
The documentary, Who Killed Shireen?, concludes that a member of Israeli special forces unit Duvdevan (Cherry) shot Abu Akleh while she was reporting for Al Jazeera in Jenin, on the West Bank.
The Israeli government, led by Naftali Bennett at the time, initially tried to cast blame on Palestinian militants for her death, but after a few months admitted that Israeli troops were probably responsible.
However, the Israelis never identified the unit or individual responsible, nor did they allow the Biden administration access to them.
The new documentary, made by the Zeteo media organisation, sets out not only to identify the soldier responsible for the journalist's death, but also to show the failure of the US government to hold the Israeli military to account.
An unnamed Biden administration official said that a US team that investigated the incident came to the conclusion that an Israeli soldier intentionally shot Abu Akleh and should have been able to see that she was a journalist.
'The evidence as it stands, based upon the proximity of the reporters in the road and the soldiers from the Duvdevan units on the street, it was an indication that it was an intentional killing of Shireen Abu Akleh,' the official told the film-makers, with his voice altered to preserve his anonymity.
'Whether or not they knew it was her or not can very well be debated, but they would have absolutely known that it was a media person or a non-combatant at a minimum'.
However that initial assessment was rejected and the Biden administration continued to maintain publicly that they believed the killing to be unintentional.
Two Israeli soldiers identified the soldier who shot Abu Akleh as Alon Scagio. Scagio was promoted to captain and moved to another unit after the shooting, and was killed in combat in Jenin in June 2024.
'He wasn't happy like, hey – I killed a journalist of course. But he wasn't like eating himself from the inside, thinking about what have I done?' one of his comrades said in a recorded interview about the killing.
'When you [turn] the corner and you have this second to take a decision, to take a shot and you see someone who holds a camera or something like that pointing at you, you don't need more than that to shoot the bullet,' the unnamed Israeli soldier said.
When the Biden administration called for changes of the Israel rules of engagement to reduce the chance of journalists being killed in the future, 'we got a very public brush-off,' Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen told the film-makers.
Questions to the Scagio family were referred to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which said in a statement: 'Zeteo has decided to publish the name of the IDF soldier who fell during an operational activity, despite the family's request not to publish the name, and even though they were told that there is no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting that caused the journalist's death.'
'The IDF shares in the family's grief and continues to support them,' the statement said, referring to the Scagio family.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Protesters clash with police at federal detention centre after LA Ice raids
At least 45 people were arrested in Los Angeles on Saturday as people demonstrated against coordinated raids throughout the city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, said the rights group Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. Ice agents were seen using pepper spray and smoke grenades to disperse the protesters. Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfil the president's promise of mass deportations
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the US, charged with human smuggling as attorneys vow ongoing fight
To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March. The fight that became a political flashpoint in the administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement now returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Abrego Garcia 'a smuggler of humans and children and women' in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won't believe the 'preposterous' allegations. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue. 'As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all," the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. "The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.' Gang threats in El Salvador Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork. The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. 'Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from 'Pupuseria Cecilia,'' his lawyers wrote. A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for 'rent money' and threatened to kill his brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren't paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S. Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them. The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. Life in the U.S. Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work. About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George's County, just outside Washington. In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George's County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or 'any new intelligence' on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13. Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case. The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail. In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia's asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a 'well-founded fear' of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal. Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice. In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records. Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out 'privately as a family, including by going to counseling.' 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,' she stated. She added that 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him." A traffic stop in Tennessee In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated. Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued. Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage. Mistaken deportation and new charges Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge's order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as 'an administrative error' but insisted he was in MS-13. His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff. The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now. A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member's mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Abrego Garcia's attorney disagreed. "There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,' attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Trump says Musk will face 'very serious consequences' if he funds Democratic candidates -NBC News
June 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump, in an interview with NBC News on Saturday, said there would be "serious consequences" if billionaire Elon Musk funds Democratic Party candidates to run against Republicans who vote for Trump's sweeping tax-cut bill. Trump declined to say what those consequences would be in the phone interview, and went on to add that he had not had discussions about whether to investigate Musk. Asked if he thought his relationship with the Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab and SpaceX CEO was over, Trump said, "I would assume so, yeah."
