A Palestinian woman takes pictures at the site where Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was shot during an Israeli attack, in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 17, 2022. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
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JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH, West Bank, July 3 (Reuters) – Israel said on Sunday it would test a bullet that killed a Palestinian-American journalist to determine whether one of its soldiers shot her, and said a U.S. monitor would be present.
The Palestinians, who handed over the bullet to a US security coordinator on Saturday, said they had been assured Israel would not be involved in the ballistic action. Read more
Washington has yet to comment. The United States has a holiday weekend to celebrate the 4th of July.
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The death of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11 during an Israeli attack in the occupied West Bank and the feud between the countries over the circumstances overshadowed a visit by US President Joe Biden that was due this month.
The Palestinians claim that the Israeli military deliberately killed Abu Akle. Israel denies this, saying she may have been hit by errant army fire or by a bullet from one of the Palestinian gunmen who clashed with its forces at the scene.
In a separate incident, a 17-year-old Palestinian died in hospital after being shot late Saturday by Israeli soldiers in a clash in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. An Israeli army spokesman said the report was being looked into.
“The (ballistic) test will not be an American test. The test will be an Israeli test, with an American presence throughout,” Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Ran Kochav said.
“In the coming days or hours, it will be clear whether even we killed her, accidentally, or it was the Palestinian shooters,” he told army radio. “If we killed her, we will take responsibility and regret what happened.
Akram al-Khatib, the Palestinian Authority’s attorney general, said the test would take place at the US Embassy in Jerusalem.
“We have received assurances from the American coordinator that the review will be carried out by them and that the Israeli side will not be involved,” Al-Khatib told Voice of Palestine radio, adding that he expected the bullet to be returned on Sunday.
A US embassy spokesman said: “We have nothing new at this time.”
Biden is expected to hold separate meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders during his July 13-16 Middle East trip. The Abu Akle case will be a diplomatic and domestic test for the new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
“It will take several days to conduct a ballistics test with several experts to ensure there is an unequivocal assessment,” Israel’s Deputy Minister of Internal Security Yoav Segalowitz told Army Radio.
Israel said the person who fired the bullet could only be identified by matching it to a gun in a forensics lab. Such testing usually requires finding markings on the bullet left by the unique rifling of the barrel of the gun from which it was fired.
Earlier, the Israeli military said that one soldier may have been able to fire the fatal shot, suggesting that it could only account for that soldier’s rifle.
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Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Written by Dan Williams; Editing by Edmund Blair
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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