Jerusalem: The Israeli army said on Monday that there was a “high possibility” that a soldier killed a well-known Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May, international news agency AP reports.
In a briefing to reporters, the official said the military could not conclusively determine where the fire emanated from, saying there may have been Palestinian gunmen in the same area as the Israeli soldier. But he said the soldier killed the journalist “with very high likelihood” and did so by mistake.
The official did not explain why witness accounts and videos showed limited militant activity in the area, as well as no gunfire in the vicinity until the barrage that struck Abu Akleh and wounded another reporter, the report added.
“He misidentified her. His reports in real time point to a misidentification,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines.
Abu Akleh, a US-Palestinian citizen, was shot dead on May 11 while covering Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank.
Akleh’s death triggered outrage across the world. She had covered the West Bank for the satellite channel for two decades and was well known across the Arab world.
