The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh: what one morning in the West Bank reveals about the occupation

This piece is best experienced with soundThe Jenin raid‘I’ll bring you news as soon as the picture becomes clear’It is still dark when Shireen Abu Akleh wakes. Soon after her day begins, she sends a message to her colleagues at Al Jazeera at 6.13am, on 11 May 2022, informing them of an Israeli military raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.Minutes later, she has been killed. As many people are starting their day, videos emerge online of her media colleague trying to save her.Similar footage of arrests, raids, house demolitions and mourning families appear online most mornings, filmed by activists and neighbours, as Israeli forces conduct their operations throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.This is what follows Abu Akleh’s early morning message from Jenin, alongside the other events she might have reported that morning had she not been killed – all captured, broadcast live and uploaded by her colleagues and other Palestinians during the day.Jenin is a city in the northern West Bank, near the Israeliseparation barrier. During thesecond intifadain the 2000s, it was the scene of heavy fighting between Palestinians and the Israeli military. In 2022, it again became a flashpoint after Israel launched Operation Breakwater, a campaign of night-time raids in Palestinian cities against armed Palestinian groups. It is one of these raids that brings Abu Akleh to the Jenin refugee camp again on 11 May 2022.Immediately after shots are fired, fellow journalist Shatha Hanaysha, who is crouched next to Abu Akleh and taking cover behind a tree, screams as she looks at Abu Akleh’s body on the ground. An Al Jazeera producer, Ali al-Samoudi, has also been shot.Visibly shaken, Hanaysha struggles to pull Abu Akleh to safety while also ducking from the bullets that are still being fired. Around the corner, another group of journalists can see that Abu Akleh is wounded and shout for a paramedic.Twitter | @hassaneslayehThe journalists, only a few metres away, keep their smartphone cameras recording while trying to get help. The volley of shots makes it hard for anyone to get across the open ground to help Hanaysha. Their video shows Abu Akleh lying on the ground but the Guardian has decided not to show it because of the graphic nature of the image.A man in a white top runs to where Hanaysha is hiding and guides her away, then pulls Abu Akleh’s body to a safer location. Hanaysha and Abu Akleh are both wearing helmets and bulletproof vests clearly marked ‘Press’.Twitter | @hassaneslayehBy 9.53am, less than three hours after Abu Akleh is shot, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweets a video of Palestinian gunmen shooting down an alleyway in Jenin, 300 metres from where the journalists were shot. The samevideo is retweeted by the then prime minister, Naftali Bennett, and other ministers, suggesting it is “likely” that Abu Akleh was killed by stray bullets fired by the gunmen. It is also retweeted by Israel’s embassies abroad. Investigations by the UN, media and human rights organisations later conclude that Abu Akleh was not in the line of fire of these gunmen and had been shot by an Israeli soldier. In September, theIsrael Defense Forces concede there is a “high possibility”of this.Abu Akleh’s body is carried to a car and placed on the back seat. Samoudi is taken to another vehicle. He is conscious and livestreams his journey to hospital on Facebook.In his livestream, as he arrives at the hospital, Samoudi shouts that he has been wounded in the back. He is taken to a bed and recites theshahadah, the Islamic declaration of faith, as he is treated. The sound of a car horn is followed by shouting in the hallway behind him. He learns that Abu Akleh, whom he calls Shireen, has been wounded.WARNING: this video contains explicit imagery some people may find disturbing. (Click to play)Facebook | ‎علي سمودي‎Other journalists gather at the hospital, waiting for news, when Abu Akleh’s death is announced. Many are filming as camera crews arrive.Facebook | Quds NewsAbu Akleh’s niece, Lina, is woken at 7am by phone calls from her father, who works in Somalia and is desperately trying to find out what has happened to his sister after seeing the news. Lina searches online and sees the video of her aunt being carried to the car.The news and the military reach the south Hebron hills‘They put pressure every day on our lives’At the other end of the West Bank, a convoy of Israeli military vehicles gathers at Ma’on, an Israeli settlement, which attracts a group of local Palestinian activists and journalists. Many of them know Abu Akleh well, having spoken to her when she reported on the demolitions in the south Hebron hills. They have just heard of her death.Reports come in from nearby shepherds that industrial diggers are heading from the settlement toMasafer Yatta, a cluster of herders’ villages that are to be demolished and cleared for an Israeli military firing range. The diggers’ destintion is a village called Khirbet al-Fakheit.The military convoy adopts a formation that allows the vehicles to protect the diggers as they crawl through the hills. The construction machines are to carry out demolition orders made by the Israeli high court a week earlier. The journalists and residents do not know that Khirbet al-Fakheit is the destination. About 1,200 people in Masafer Yatta are facing eviction and no one knows when it will happen.Twitter | @basel_adraThe operation in Khirbet al-Fakheit on 11 May destroys the homes of 31 people – the most of any demolition carried out by the Israeli military in 2022, according toUN data.This drone image from 2021 shows Khirbet al-Fakheit from above. Like most of Masafer Yatta, families here mostly live in tents. Animals wander around the village, which is only connected to the rest of Masafer Yatta and the outside world by dirt tracks that wind through the hills. The village’s school is a portable building and electricity is supplied by solar panels on the ground.In this video filmed on 11 May, hours after Abu Akleh was shot, Israeli soldiers fan out across the village and begin evicting families from their shelters. They “kettle”, or confine, the residents in one area while teams in hi-vis vests empty their homes.Video: Basel AdraSeparated from their homes by a cordon of soldiers, the families watch as the diggers move in, crushing their tents.Video: Basel AdraDemolitions of Bedouin homes take place across three villages that day; the other two locations are at-Tuwani and Mirkez, removing 17 shelters and homes.This is not unusual. In 2022, 239 homes of herder families were demolished, according to UN data, displacing 309 people. Some people have been evicted multiple times.Their homes are usually fragile and temporary. They cannot put up permanent buildings as Palestinian herders andBedouinsmostly live inArea C, parts of the West Bank where Israel has complete authority, including over what can be built.Area CAt the doors of the Abu Akleh home, mourners congregate‘She entered people’s houses through the TV screen and connected with them’News of Abu Akleh’s death immediately stirs emotions in the Middle East and beyond. Al Jazeera pays tribute, and her picture appears on the electronic billboard over Al-Manara Square in the centre of the West Bank’s administrative capital, Ramallah. Abu Akleh had been the face of Al Jazeera’s reporting from Palestine since the channel launched and she was well known to many Arabic speakers.Twitter | @palestineultraMany Palestinians go to her family’s home in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem, in keeping with the Palestinian tradition of mourning. They crowd in, offering condolences. More people gather outside in the coming hours.Maya Alleruzzo/APIsraeli police soon arrive and try to shut down the gathering, complaining about the raising of Palestinian flags outside the house. They are shouted down by the crowd and forced to leave.Facebook | Wadi Hilweh Information CenterAnd nearby, people’s homes are being demolished‘God willing the last Palestinian home destroyed will be mine’Elsewhere in Beit Hanina, cameras arrive at the house of another distraught family, but for a different reason. The home of the Salaymeh family is one of several being demolished in East Jerusalem this morning. Unlike those in Masafer Yatta, these demolitions are not part of a military operation but on the orders of the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem, destroying homes built without the necessary permission.Very few building permits are issued in Palestinian areas of Jerusalem. Data released by the Israeli municipality in 2019 showed that only 9,536 Palestinian permits had been approved since 1991, while the number for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem was 21,834. Palestinians are expected to demolish their own homes – or face a large bill from the authorities.An excavator breaks through the stone walls of the home ofAtwan al-Salaymeh, 62, which housed 10 other people, including his wife, children and his son’s young family. They have lived in the house for 20 years.Facebook | القسطل الاخباريNot all families are able to hire the machinery. In Silwan, a poorer Palestinian area in East Jerusalem, but more sought after by Israeli settlers because of its proximity to the Old City, the religious and historical centre of Jerusalem, the Zeitoun family have to take apart their own home with hand tools.Facebook | القسطل الاخباريThe demolished homes are often extensions built for growing families within East Jerusalem’s limited space. The home of Mohammed Mustafa, in the neighbourhood of Issawiya, was built for that purpose before his marriage, but Israeli police arrive with demolition orders. They block off the road as an excavator demolishes the apartment.Facebook | القسطل الاخباريAfter the demolition, Mustafa surveys the wreckage. His belongings are all lying now on the ground outside the ruins of his home.Facebook | القسطل الاخباريTheUN recorded six demolitions on 11 May, leaving 21 people homeless, across East Jerusalem.In 2022, there were 144 demolitions in this area, according to UN data.As crowds mourn Abu Akleh’s death outside the Al Jazeera offices, a boy is killed near his school‘Children in the world play nicely, our children play beside soldiers’At 9.30am, three hours after Abu Akleh was killed, 16-year-old Thaer Yazouri is hit in the chest by a bullet.Two hours earlier, the teenager arrives at school, dropped off by his father, Khalil. As his lessons start, news of Abu Akleh’s death spreads. Outside the school, a group of Palestinian youths from his town of Al-Bireh rally and head towards Psagot, the Israeli settlement on the hill above their neighbourhood. They block the road, burn rubbish bins and throw rocks at the soldiers on the settlement’s perimeter. The soldiers push them back, chasing them back towards the school.Thaer’s classes end early because teachers are on strike over pay and conditions. As he and his friends leave school, they walk into the confrontation between the youths and Israeli soldiers, who are using teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. The schoolchildren hide behind a van.According to the human rights groupB’Tselem, witnesses see Thaer and his friends peeking from behind the van when it is hit by two live bullets, one of which goes through Thaer’s chest. He is taken to hospital by a local resident who saw him shot. He is pronounced dead almost immediately.Thaer wanted to become a professional footballer and had dreams of playing for Palestine. Image courtesy of the Yazouri family. source:At home, Thaer’s mother, Marya, is following the updates of Abu Akleh’s death when news and social media reports come through of a boy killed in Al-Bireh. His name is Thaer but the reports say he is 18. Marya is worried but unsure if it is her son. By the time his death is confirmed, Palestinian media channels are present and record the wail she lets out.A photo of Thaer training with his local football team in Al-Bireh. Image courtesy of the Yazouri family.At the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah, Thaer’s friends lift his body on to their shoulders and begin marching him back towards Al-Bireh. The route takes them through the middle of Ramallah and its central point, Al-Manara Square.WARNING: this video contains explicit imagery some people may find disturbing. (Click to play)Twitter | @shejae3aHis body passes beneath the billboard mourning Abu Akleh, a point noted in videos uploaded to TikTok. Later, his friends put pictures of both him and Abu Akleh in the place where he was killed and at his seat in the classroom.Twitter | @palestineultraPalestinians in the West Bank cannot reach Abu Akleh’s home in Jerusalem as it is on the other side of Israel’sseparation wall. So instead they go to Al Jazeera’s offices in the heart of Ramallah, near where Thaer’s body had been carried that morning. When an ambulance brings her body down from Jenin, the crowd lift it up and carry it into the Al Jazeera office.Eyad Jadallah/ShutterstockThaer’s father says the deaths are not linked. “On this day, Thaer died and Shireen died. Hundreds die every other day,” he says. “There will be no justice. Justice is not available for us.”Thaer was just one of 36 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022.Khalil Yazouri does not remember anything particular about Thaer on 11 May. It felt like an ordinary day. Thaer was a boy who hated violence and loved football. He dreamed of becoming a professional player.Thaer’s siblings have barely processed his death, talking as if he is still with them. Marya writes a tribute to him on Facebook on the 11th day of each month.A deadly yearAbu Akleh had spent much of the time in the weeks leading up to her death in Jenin reporting onOperation Breakwater, which was at its height.The military campaign contributed to what was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the second intifada. The UN counted 155 Palestinian fatalities in 2022.Thaer was one of 36 children killed in the West Bank in 2022.Palestinian fatalities in the West BankAdultsMinors15010050020082022Guardian graphic. Source: Ocha, 2023Ten Israelis were killed in 2022, including four soldiers, in several attacks around Israeli settlements and checkpoints in the West Bank. Another 11 Israelis and four Palestinians were killed within Israel.Israeli fatalities in the West BankAdultsMinors15010050020082022Guardian graphic. Source: Ocha, 2023Operation Breakwater has continued into 2023. So far this year88 Palestinians have been killed, according to the latest update from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The deadliest incident was again in Jenin, when 10 Palestinians were killed in a single raid, including 61-year-oldMajida Obaid, who was hit by a bullet in her own home.Two days later, a Palestinian man carried out an attack in Jerusalem thatkilled seven Israelisin Neve Yaakov, a neighbourhood of Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem.In all, 1,032 Palestinians were displaced last year, including 309 people from herder and Bedouin communities, more than half of them from the south Hebron hills or nearby. In Jerusalem, 335 people were displaced in urban areas (excluding Bedouin) and 144 homes were demolished.Abu Akleh’s family continue to campaign for justice. Last November, the US announced it wasopening an investigationinto her death. Israel said it would not cooperate.Human rights groups including B’Tselem andDefence for Children Internationaldocumented the conditions leading to Thaer’s death. The Israeli military approached Thaer’s family about an investigation but nothing has followed. They do not expect anything more.About the dataAll data on fatalities and demolitions is from theUnited Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA), 2023.Fatalities in the West BankThe fatalities counts are the finalised annual figures for 2022. They may vary from other sources due to methodological or mandate considerations.Herder/Bedouin demolitionsThis data refers to residents of communities that are categorised as herders or Bedouins. People displaced multiple times in a single year are counted multiple times. The locations for the 2022 annual data are mapped to the governorate in which they took place.ShapefilesThe State of Palestine – Oslo Agreement in the West Bank (Area C): HDX.The boundaries of East Jerusalem:Princeton University Library, 2008.Additional photo credits:Header image:Guardian design based on handout image.Sunrise over Jenin:Mohammed AbedShireen Abu Akleh, monochrome:AFP/Al JazeeraHerder women surveying demolition:Basel AdraDigger machinery still:AlQastal NewsDrone image of Khirbet al-Fakheit:Hazem Bader/AFP via GettyWomen watching television at Abu Akleh home:Reuters/Ammar AwadRelatives of Abu Akleh embracing:Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesThis article was updated on 21 March 2023 to correct a mapping error reflecting the boundaries of the Golan Heights.