Israeli police announced on Saturday that they will open an investigation after the international outcry sparked by images showing the intervention of the police at the funeral in Jerusalem of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose coffin almost fell to the ground.
“The Israel Police Commissioner, in coordination with the Minister of Public Security, has ordered an investigation into the incident. The findings of the investigation will be presented to the commissioner in the coming days,” police said in a statement released during the Jewish weekly rest day on Shabbat.
As the coffin was released from St. Joseph’s Hospital in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city also occupied by Israel, police burst into the facility and attempted to disperse a crowd waving Palestinian flags . The coffin almost fell from the hands of the bearers who were hit by police armed with batons but was caught in extremis, according to images broadcast by local television. Images that have toured social networks and televisions around the world.
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According to a police statement, “rioters prevented the family members from loading the coffin into a hearse to proceed to the cemetery, as agreed with the family … The crowd refused to release the coffin in the hearse and the police intervened to prevent him from taking it. During the riot triggered by the crowd, glass bottles and other objects were thrown.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported 33 injuries and the Israeli police reported six arrests.
Since yesterday reactions of anger or incomprehension follow one another
Since then, the reactions have multiplied. Example in South Africa: in a press release this Saturday, the Desmond Tutu Foundation denounces this police charge which “painfully recalls the dark hours of apartheid in South Africa”. “We were deeply disturbed by the images of the Israeli police’s intrusion into the funeral procession,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The European Union condemned “the disproportionate use of force and the disrespectful behavior of the Israeli police against the participants in the funeral procession”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply troubled” and overnight the UN Security Council “strongly condemned the May 11 murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the injury of another journalist in the West Bank city of Jenin,” in a unanimous statement adopted on Friday, diplomats said. Initiated by the United States, this very rare unanimous position of the Security Council on a subject concerning Israel also calls for “an immediate, thorough, transparent and impartial investigation” into this murder. It emphasizes “the need to guarantee accountability” of its author(s).
(with agencies)