Two Years of Impunity: No Justice for Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

Esteemed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed while reporting on an Israeli Defense Forces raid in the Jenin refugee camp. Wearing a helmet and press vest, Abu Akleh was identifiable as a journalist when the fatal bullet struck her head—an act widely condemned as a “cold‑blooded assassination” by her employer.

In the two years since, multiple independent investigations—including by UN experts, Forensic Architecture, the New York Times, and the US State Department—have confirmed that Abu Akleh was most likely killed by Israeli forces. The IDF itself acknowledged the shot was “very probably” from its ranks, yet no criminal investigations have followed, and no one has been held accountable.

The milestone of 1,000 days without justice passed in February 2025, prompting renewed international outrage. Rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and UNESCO, decried the case as part of a broader pattern of impunity in attacks against journalists covering the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

RSF emphasized that failure to prosecute Abu Akleh’s killing—a U.S. citizen and prominent journalist—justifies the targeting of journalists and emboldens forces in Gaza to kill with impunity. CPJ’s analysis shows that Israeli authorities have never formally charged anyone in the deaths of 20 journalists since 2001, maintaining a structural lack of accountability.

In May 2025, a U.S.-made documentary titled Who Killed Shireen? revealed an Israeli soldier from the Duvdevan unit as likely responsible. It also disclosed that the Biden administration privately judged the killing intentional, despite publicly characterizing it as accidental, and that Israeli forces buried evidence.

Despite the compelling evidence, Israel has refused independent or criminal inquiries, often citing war zone complexity . Palestinian authorities and Al Jazeera submitted the case to the ICC, but international action remains stalled