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From illegally occupied #Palestine 🇵🇸 Wishing all of you a good day
Gerry Adams: SHIREEN ABU AKLEH ![]()
Last week (Wednesday 11 May) Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank deliberately targeted and murdered a Palestinian journalist. Shireen Abu Akleh was a well respected Palestinian/American reporter working for Al Jazeera.![]()
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The 51-year-old veteran journalist was wearing a clearly visible press vest and helmet. She was in the Jenin refugee camp covering an attack by Israeli forces when she was shot in the face by a single shot from an Israeli sniper. A second Palestinian journalist, Ali al-Samoudi, was wounded.![]()
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A video covering the minutes around Shireen Abu Akleh’s murder was widely broadcast. The Israeli authorities then published a video which they claimed showed a Palestinian fighter firing at Israeli troops. Their claim is that it was he who killed Shireen. This claim was quickly rubbished by other media outlets.![]()
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In addition, a researcher for B'Tselem - the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - filmed the locality and “documented the exact locations in which the Palestinian gunman depicted in a video distributed by the Israeli army, fired, as well as the exact location in which Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed.” Their video is available at: twitter.com/i/status/1524346246743396355. It proved that the Israeli claim is bogus.![]()
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Subsequently, in horrifying scenes reminiscent of RUC attacks on Republican funerals in the North during the period known as the Battle of the Funerals, Israeli forces raided Shireen Abu Akleh’s home during the wake and then launched a major attack on the funeral. Israeli troops viciously assaulted mourners, some of whom were carrying the coffin. There was widespread international condemnation of the assassination and the attack on the funeral.![]()
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Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney said: “No self-respecting democracy could stand over this treatment of people.”![]()
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He’s right. And no self-respecting democracy can stand back and fail to take action against such behavior. In the week that the Palestinian people commemorate Nakba - the time when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes as Israel declared its independence - the Irish government should now move to positively use its position on the United Nations Security Council in support of Palestinian rights, recognise the State of Palestine and stop blocking the passing into law of the Occupied Territories Bill.![]()
www.irishecho.com/2022/5/adams-la-mor-dearg-agus-acht-na-gaeilge