Israel: Police to investigate incidents at Shireen Abu Akleh funeral in Jerusalem
The images of the charge of the Israeli police in East Jerusalem, Friday May 13, during the funeral of the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, assassinated Wednesday of a bullet in the head, shocked.
REUTERS - AMMAR AWAD
Text by: RFI Follow
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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.
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“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.
Since yesterday the reactions of anger or incomprehension follow one another.
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.
Since then, the reactions have multiplied.
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 footage of Israeli police intruding on the funeral procession," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
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.
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To read also
: in Jerusalem, clashes during the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
(with agencies)
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