One Year On, the US Has Failed to Demand Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh

Thursday will mark one year since Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was shot and killed in the occupied West Bank while reporting on an Israeli army raid in Jenin refugee camp. The unconscionably unlawful killing, captured on film, of Abu Akleh by Israeli forces has gone unpunished. And, the Biden administration appears to have fallen in line with the Israeli government’s claims that “there is a high possibility that Ms. Abu Akleh was accidentally hit by IDF gunfire.”

The administration’s failure over the last year to support an independent, thorough, and credible investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh and to ensure the perpetrators are held to account shows the depth of the double standards permeating its human rights policies when it comes to key security partners. When the U.S. does not demand accountability from its allies for even the most egregious and documented examples of human rights harms, the likelihood that governments will continue violating human rights knowing that they can do so with impunity only increases.

The killing of Abu Akleh was not an isolated incident and must also be understood within the wider context of the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Palestinians are regularly killed or injured—with impunity— as a result of the Israeli forces’ use of excessive force when policing protests or carrying out search and arrest raids. Notably, in the year since Abu Akleh’s death, the Jenin refugee camp has been at the center of the Israeli military’s escalating crackdown across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and its residents continue to be subjected to relentless military raids, which amount to collective punishment.

Abu Akleh’s killing and the inaction by the U.S. government to publicly call for an independent investigation and demand meaningful accountability stand as a stark reminder of its role in shielding the Israeli government from accountability more generally.

The unlawful killing of Palestinians and other violations committed by the Israeli authorities also serve to maintain the government’s system of apartheid over the Palestinian people. For decades, Israel has created and maintained laws, policies, and practices that deliberately oppress Palestinians to ensure Jewish Israeli domination across Israel, the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees denied the right to return to their homes. Amnesty International released a new report earlier this month detailing how the discriminatory use of facial recognition technology by the Israeli authorities in East Jerusalem and Hebron further entrenches this system of apartheid.

Abu Akleh’s killing and the inaction by the U.S. government to publicly call for an independent investigation and demand meaningful accountability stand as a stark reminder of its role in shielding the Israeli government from accountability more generally. It is reminiscent of how the U.S. has failed to hold the government of Saudi Arabia, another ally and security partner, accountable for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent resident at the time of his death.

The cost of impunity is clear, as the human rights situation on the ground continues to further deteriorate amid an escalating military crackdown by the Israeli authorities. Until the Israeli authorities are held accountable for unlawful killings, like Abu Akleh’s, deadly attacks by the Israeli forces against Palestinians in the OPT will continue.

Amnesty International shares the Abu Akleh family’s call for an FBI investigation to be truly independent and thorough and for accountability to be taken to the top of the Israeli military’s chain of command. It is time for the U.S. administration to support an independent, thorough, and credible investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh and to take steps to hold the Israeli government to account for its human rights obligations.

Amnesty will continue to demand justice for Shireen Abu Akleh.