Yesterday, I read the story from the Irish Times and it was pretty clear on the circumstances of yesterday’s killing of Shireen Abu Aqleh. I quoted it online in a post about the shooting:

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>Mr Samoudi, who was working as her producer, told the Associated Press they were among a group of seven reporters who went to cover the raid early on Wednesday.
>
>He said they were all wearing protective gear that clearly marked them as reporters, and they passed by Israeli troops so the soldiers would see them and know that they were there.
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>He said a first shot missed them, a second hit him, and a third killed Ms Abu Akleh.
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>He said there were no militants or other civilians in the area – only the reporters and the army.He said the military’s suggestion they were shot by militants is a “complete lie”.
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>Shaza Hanaysheh, a reporter with a Palestinian news website who was also among the reporters, gave a similar account in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel, saying there were no clashes or shooting in the immediate area.
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>She said when the shots rang out she and Ms Abu Akleh ran towards a tree to take shelter. “I reached the tree before Shireen. She fell on the ground,” Ms Hanaysheh said. “The soldiers did not stop shooting even after she fell. Every time I extended my hand to pull Shireen, the soldiers fired at us.”
>
>Ran Kochav, an Israeli commander, told army radio the two journalists were standing alongside armed Palestinians. He said the gunmen were “unprofessional people, terrorists, who were shooting at our troops”.

Footage from immediately after the shooting can be seen here and seems to corroborate the statements from Ms Hanayshek, who can be seen in the video reaching for the body of Shireen Abu Akleh as shots are heard in the background. (Footage is NSFW)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelCrimes/comments/un5a5y/the\_moment\_when\_the\_palestinian\_journalist\_and/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelCrimes/comments/un5a5y/the_moment_when_the_palestinian_journalist_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

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A few hours later The Irish Times chose to edit the article drastically.

Now it has been edited in the update with all that information removed and this in its place:

>However, the Israeli narrative was different. “It is highly likely that it was armed Palestinians who fired indiscriminately at the Israeli forces that caused Abu Aqleh’s regrettable death,” said prime minister Naftali Bennett.

[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/al-jazeera-reporter-killed-during-israeli-raid-in-west-bank-1.4875443](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/al-jazeera-reporter-killed-during-israeli-raid-in-west-bank-1.4875443)

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Edit: Thanks to u/outhouse_steakhouse for posting the original article below

[https://web.archive.org/web/20220511082000/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/al-jazeera-reporter-killed-during-israeli-raid-in-west-bank-1.4875443](https://web.archive.org/web/20220511082000/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/al-jazeera-reporter-killed-during-israeli-raid-in-west-bank-1.4875443)

23 comments

  1. Very troubling from the IT. They note an update, but not the nature of it – this is not simply supplemental information, adding that while removing the previous info totally reshapes the trajectory of the article.

  3. Christ, they really did remove all the first-hand accounts of the eyewitnesses that contradicted the Israeli narrative.

    This line is added to give more weight to Israel’s account:

    > She was hit by a bullet in the head during a fierce exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen.

    It’s exactly how the British media reported on massacres and murders of Irish civilians by British soldiers.

  6. I don’t understand why they would get into journalism if they won’t even speak truth to power when one of their own is killed in cold blood. It’s insane how they all walk on eggshells around Israel.

  7. Is the author of the piece an Irish Times journalist?

    The story notes additional reporting by AP and Reuters, so even if Mark Weiss is an IT journalist – rather than something they licence in – it may be that AP or Reuters changed the story.

    For fairly obvious reasons, nobody trusts either the Israelis or Palestinians to tell the truth in these things.

  8. I’m surprised they didn’t just go with Israel’s knee jerk response of victim blaming that they later retracted and leave it at that.

    Did RTÉ even report on it?

    This story tells you their view on actual journalism and how much they respect journalists.

  12. Isreal just constantly outright lies about atrocities they commit and the media seems to think the appropriate respose is to repeat their statements without criticism.

  14. While I’m not a fan of the edits made here, there is a possibility of an innocent/partially-innocent explanation here.

    In an attempt to provide broader coverage and more real-time news at a reasonable economic cost [irishtimes.com](https://irishtimes.com) syndicates quite a lot of content from The Associated Press, The Guardian, Reuters, The Financial Times, and potentially other news wire services.

    The original article here has no name Irish Times author and finishes with “– Associated Press”. Therefore it is likely to be unedited or minimally edited content from the AP posted directly to [IT.com](https://IT.com).

    The story then got updated by Mark Weiss (the IT’s reporter on the ground), and you can see that it’s got the line “with additional reporting from AP/Reuters” in the updated version.

    Why he chose to write the article itself, and whether or not he was subject to any editorial pressure are separate questions. But to be fair to him, he’s previously been praised for balanced reporting in Palestine: https://www.irishcentral.com/news/us-group-accuses-irish-times-of-bias-42339767-237634861

  16. B’Tselem, an Israeli NGO, confirmed it was IDF fire that killed her. Saw it on their Twitter. They’re just playing games. Irish Times disappoint again.

  17. So things we know for fact so far are:
    1. Israeli army surrounded the house of the person who committed the act of terrorism – killed two random people on the street.
    2. They demanded that person to surrender, but some unknown at the moment armed force, most likely Hamas, attacked them and in the following firefight the journalist was shot.
    3. Despite working for Al Jazeera both the journalist and her colleagues are Palestinians. They are not impartial in this conflict so the claim of the colleague of the dead journalist that he knows exactly who’s bullet it was should be taken with a grain of salt.

    Prepared to be downvoted to oblivion because Israel is bad, and Palestinians are saint even when stabbing random people on the street.

    Edit:
    Autopsy results are inconclusive on who shot her IDF or Hamas militants:
    https://www.maannews.net/news/2066681.html

    Edit2:
    Palestinian authorities refuse to allow examination of bullet or the body by both Israelis or Americans (she apparently also held US citizenship).
    https://www.maannews.net/news/2066725.html

    Edit3:
    Preliminary investigation results by IDF:
    https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-1.10794335

    Edit4:
    IDF released on gun camera footage:
    https://youtu.be/bqu-4hBmQ90

    Edit5:
    Hamas militants apparently also released the footage of the firefight from their side before they knew the journalist was shot. On the 12th second they yell that they shot a Jew however no Israeli soldiers were shot:

    https://twitter.com/AbuAliEnglishB1/status/1524290460650557441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1524290460650557441%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnewsru.co.il%2Fisrael%2F12may2022%2Fabu_akleh_120.html

  18. It’s pretty clear the independent got a phone call from someone very high up. The writer should be careful from now on.

    Yes Mr Klauss understood Israel genociding muslim good, Putan bad

  19. That is extremely sketchy.

    Why would a journalist willfully remove information after it had been published? None of the reason I can think of paint a kind picture.

    I will not trust the Irish times now. I cant see such a blatant attempt to change a narrative/decide what the narrative is and then assume the next page is unbias.

  20. This is really troubling, how a foreign state can put pressure on our journalists and news and basically spread their propagation through our newspapers. This has been a thing the Israel state have done for years and for some reason it’s allowed to happen.

  21. Have they broken any practice codes? I wonder if the press ombudsman would be interested in a complaint.

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