A new documentary has claimed to identify the Israeli soldier who opened fire and killed veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank three years ago.

Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Palestinian-American correspondent, was wearing a vest marked “Press” and a helmet when she was killed while covering clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp on May 11, 2022.

• The killing drew widespread condemnation around the world, with Israel, under heavy US pressure to investigate, eventually concluding that a single soldier shot her by mistake.

According to the documentary by Zeteo News, a left-wing news outlet founded by Israel critic Mehdi Hassan, Cpt. Alon Scagio, then a 20-year-old sharpshooter in the Duvdevan commando unit, was behind the deadly shooting.

Scagio was killed by a roadside bomb in Jenin last year at the age of 22. (The Israel Defense Forces had previously spelled his name as Sacgiu).

• Following the killing of Abu Akleh, the IDF initially blamed Palestinian gunmen but later acknowledged that she could have also been killed by Israeli soldiers.
• In September 2022, the IDF concluded “with very high likelihood” that a single soldier shot the journalist after “misidentifying her.”
• “He misidentified her. His reports in real-time point to a misidentification,” an officer said at the time on condition of anonymity.

• According to a team of investigative journalists commissioned by Zeteo to look into the killing — including former Wall Street Journal correspondent Dion Nissenbaum and Fatima Abdul Karim, a New York Times contributor — two other soldiers serving in the Duvdevan squad at the time of the incident named Scagio as the shooter.

Military officials, insisting on anonymity, confirmed to The New York Times that the documentary’s conclusions were correct.

However, the IDF itself told the newspaper that there was “no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting.” The army also passed along a message from the Scagio family requesting that reporters not name the captain.

• Because the IDF found the shooting had been accidental, no prosecution was ever opened and the shooter was not named publicly. A US State Department probe also found that while Abu Akleh was likely shot by an Israeli soldier, the killing was seemingly unintentional.

However, the documentary, titled “Who Killed Shireen,” cited an anonymous official in former US president Joe Biden’s administration who says a draft version of the American report concluded that she was shot intentionally, but the finding was softened to avoid friction with Israel.

An unnamed US official quoted by The New York Times denied that the report had been altered and said US officials were not able to determine what the shooter may have seen or what his motivations may have been.

• Several independent media investigations have previously said there were no armed Palestinians in the vicinity of Abu Akleh and other journalists she was with when they came under gunfire, which also wounded another reporter.

Abu Akleh’s brother, Anton Abu Akleh, told Al Jazeera he was confident the documentary “will shed more light and prove that she was systematically targeted like other journalists in Palestine by the Israeli army.”

Scagio, who later joined a sniper team in the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit as a commander, was killed by a roadside bomb in Jenin just after midnight on June 27, 2024.

A new documentary has claimed to identify the Israeli soldier who opened fire and killed veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank three years ago.

Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Palestinian-American correspondent, was wearing a vest marked “Press” and a helmet when she was killed while covering clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp on May 11, 2022. The killing drew widespread condemnation around the world, with Israel, under heavy US pressure to investigate, eventually concluding that a single soldier shot her by mistake.

• According to the documentary by Zeteo News, a left-wing news outlet founded by Israel critic Mehdi Hassan, Cpt. Alon Scagio, then a 20-year-old sharpshooter in the Duvdevan commando unit, was behind the deadly shooting. Scagio was killed by a roadside bomb in Jenin last year at the age of 22. (The Israel Defense Forces had previously spelled his name as Sacgiu).

Following the killing of Abu Akleh, the IDF initially blamed Palestinian gunmen but later acknowledged that she could have also been killed by Israeli soldiers.

In September 2022, the IDF concluded “with very high likelihood” that a single soldier shot the journalist after “misidentifying her.”

“He misidentified her. His reports in real-time point to a misidentification,” an officer said at the time on condition of anonymity.

Because the IDF found the shooting had been accidental, no prosecution was ever opened and the shooter was not named publicly. A US State Department probe also found that while Abu Akleh was likely shot by an Israeli soldier, the killing was seemingly unintentional.

However, the documentary, titled “Who Killed Shireen,” cited an anonymous official in former US president Joe Biden’s administration who says a draft version of the American report concluded that she was shot intentionally, but the finding was softened to avoid friction with Israel.

Several independent media investigations have previously said there were no armed Palestinians in the vicinity of Abu Akleh and other journalists she was with when they came under gunfire, which also wounded another reporter.

Abu Akleh’s brother, Anton Abu Akleh, told Al Jazeera he was confident the documentary “will shed more light and prove that she was systematically targeted like other journalists in Palestine by the Israeli army.”

• According to a memorial page maintained by the army, Scagio was helping evacuate medical soldiers injured in an initial explosion that targeted an armored personnel carrier when a second bomb exploded, killing him.

• Abu Akleh was highly respected in the Arab world for her decades covering Palestinians and other Arab communities. Posters with her face proliferated around the Arab world following the killing.

Source: TOI