‘A league of her own’: Remembering Shireen Abu Akleh, a year on from her killing
Shireen Abu Akleh and Mohammed Daraghmeh.
Ben Samuels writes in Haaretz on 10 May 2023:
The death of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh a year ago captured the world’s attention due to her sterling reputation and omnipresence in Arab media.
The Al Jazeera correspondent was killed while covering an Israeli military raid in Jenin on May 11, 2022. Although the Israel Defense Forces initially denied any involvement in her death, it later conceded that Abu Akleh was most likely killed by Israeli fire. No soldiers have been held accountable.
For journalists around the world, Abu Akleh’s killing marked the loss of an objective voice of authority who broke the mold in ways relating to politics, gender and religion. For friends and family, the 51-year-old reporter’s death was acutely felt due to her compassion, vivacity and empathy, which has created a void that remains unfilled to this day.
For senior Palestinian journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh, the loss of his decades-long friend and colleague hit hard both personally and professionally.
“It was such a loss, both for Palestinian and Arab media and myself,” says the Palestine bureau chief for Saudi-based Asharq News. Repeatedly describing her as “very warm,” he notes how important her social life was to her, as the East Jerusalem-born reporter was not married and did not have children.
“Most days she would go out after work. She would always call and say: Let’s go out, let’s have a drink, let’s have dinner, let’s do this, let’s do that. She was truly close with her friends, they were family in so many ways,” he recounts. “There was no single social event where she didn’t want to go and interact with everyone.”
“She went there because she thought it would help tell a bigger story,” Daraghmeh says of the raid in Jenin where Abu Akleh was killed. When he heard she was injured, he “Just couldn’t believe it,” he says, “I was asked to report live on her death and I just couldn’t do it. I collapsed.”
Daraghmeh says this love of community manifested in a true sense of loyalty motivated by basic kindness, rooted in her Christianity. “I would always say she was truly like a saint. She valued how to be honest, how to be a real human, how to be nice to everyone. I don’t remember her ever saying a bad word about anyone,” he says.
“Whenever anyone would try to gossip, she would always reject it outright or look for the best in whoever was talking. Her kindness would embarrass anyone who would try to talk badly about anyone,” he adds.
As much as Daraghmeh admired her personally, he valued her just as much professionally. “She was in a league of her own. Most Arab media is fully politicized, where journalists are involved in some way and take sides. Not Shireen: she was very objective, even when Al Jazeera would take an editorial line,” he says.
This objectivity carried over to her coverage of Palestinian resistance efforts against the Israeli authorities. “Not even the Israelis can say she ever incited against anyone,” Daraghmeh says. “She wasn’t pro-this or pro-that. She never praised anyone who ever carried out an attack or killed or assassinated anyone.”
The Asharq News correspondent becomes particularly emotional as he relays how he uses Abu Akleh’s approach as a model in his training of young journalists, both with her objectivity and her style of reporting. “She was both technical and creative,” he explains. “She spoke in short, intense sentences and had a quiet voice she would never raise in a way that would imply influence.”
He and Abu Akleh first met in the mid-1990s while covering the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, when she was reporting for Al Jazeera and he was working for the Associated Press. The two would stay up through the night waiting for statements from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, camped out with reporters from across the globe.
“It was the biggest story in the world and he would wait until 4:30 or 5 A.M. to deliver statements on clashes or the conflict or politics,” Daraghmeh recounts. “We became friends and grew increasingly close – we’d often see each other more than our families.”
Collegiality and respect
Daraghmeh and Abu Akleh’s relationship grew closer over the years in large part to her willingness to help out colleagues who could otherwise be viewed as rivals. Her reputation with both Palestinian and Arab political leaders, along with her collegiality and respect for her colleagues, empowered her to help foster access for other reporters.
She was so well respected that a senior Palestinian political official once approached Daraghmeh, asking for his help in convincing Abu Akleh to join his party’s slate prior to prospective Palestinian elections. “She, of course, had no interest in this,” Daraghmeh says. “She had no desire or ambition for that. But if she wanted to be a candidate or a minister, she would have won. She was widely respected and had all the tools to make sense of politics after being an independent journalist.”
Over the ensuing decades, the two journalists would report on news in the West Bank and travel the world together, including the 2008 Arab Summit in Syria and UN General Assembly annual meetings in New York.
Daraghmeh was reporting from the South Hebron Hills 48 hours before Abu Akleh’s killing, alongside one of her colleagues from Al Jazeera International. Abu Akleh implored them to visit Jenin, to which they responded that she should come to the South Hebron Hills instead. “That was the last time we spoke, but we still have that conversation on social media,” he says.
Daraghmeh returned home while Abu Akleh was still in Jenin on May 11, when she went to report on what he calls a smaller-than-usual Israeli military raid. “I talked to her bureau chief and he said ‘Not in our nightmares would this be what killed Shireen.’ It was a couple of Jeeps entering the camp; it wasn’t a story big enough for her to cover. She went there because she thought it would help tell a bigger story,” Daraghmeh says.
He would soon hear that she was injured, despite wearing her helmet and vest that clearly identified her as a member of the press. “I just couldn’t believe it. It was the kind of raid that wouldn’t even be worth reporting on. The news kept coming out and I was asked to report live on her death and I just couldn’t do it. I collapsed,” he recalls.
Daraghmeh finds himself in Turkey on the anniversary of Abu Akleh’s death, reporting on that country’s elections. Reflecting on life as a Palestinian journalist, the most present thought is how much he enjoys moving freely without the hindrance of checkpoints.
“If I would go from Nablus to Ramallah, I’d spend the whole day at different checkpoints,” he says. “The last time I went through one, there were soldiers aiming their weapons at me. It makes me very nervous all the time. Any soldier can decide to shoot at you and claim you tried to run them over,” he says, adding that he has killed stories because he doesn’t want to deal with the risk.
Cause of death
Abu Akleh’s world standing has only grown in the year since her death. Daraghmeh believes this is due not only to her journalistic reputation and connection with Al Jazeera but the live coverage of her death, where Israeli security forces brutally beat mourners at her funeral procession in East Jerusalem. He also highlights the importance of her dual Palestinian-American citizenship, which he says she attempted to hide throughout her career (it was known only to close friends and colleagues). She feared its disclosure might lead the Israeli authorities to revoke her residence status in Jerusalem.
Daraghmeh does not, however, believe an Israeli soldier intentionally killed Abu Akleh because of her high profile. “She was killed because she was a Palestinian, not because she was a journalist,” he says. “The problem is with the rules of engagement. It’s so loose and there are so few repercussions for soldiers, [from] the lowest rankings to the highest.”
He has covered hundreds of cases where soldiers emerge from similar incidents with impunity, he says – including other journalist colleagues, such as his Associated Press cameraman in the 1990s. “It’s up to the soldier. The likelihood is that the soldier decided to take the life of this journalist simply because he decided to do this. Shireen was visible, she was identifiable as a journalist; her colleague was also visible and shot. The soldiers will be protected, no matter what.”
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