Four Years Since Shireen Abu Akleh: A Pattern of Impunity and Escalating Press Killings
The fourth anniversary of the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh falls on a landscape transformed — and in many ways darkened — by what came after. Where her death in May 2022 shocked the world and prompted international demands for accountability, the years that followed have seen more than 275 journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and Lebanon, according to reporting by Mondoweiss. The failure to hold anyone criminally responsible for Abu Akleh’s death, advocates and press freedom monitors argue, did not close a chapter — it opened one.
What Happened to Shireen Abu Akleh
On 11 May 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh — a veteran Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera Arabic who had reported on Palestinian life and Israeli military operations for more than two decades — was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. She was wearing a press vest and helmet clearly marked with the word “PRESS.” Investigations by the United Nations, Al Jazeera, Amnesty International, CNN, the Associated Press, and the New York Times independently concluded that she was killed by Israeli fire. The United States State Department ultimately determined that Israeli gunfire was “likely responsible,” though it stopped short of finding intentionality and recommended no criminal referral. No Israeli soldier has faced prosecution. Abu Akleh’s name became a reference point for discussions about the targeting — deliberate or systemic — of journalists covering Palestinian realities under occupation.
The Wider Pattern: From One Name to Hundreds
The Mondoweiss report frames Abu Akleh’s killing not as an isolated incident but as a precedent whose consequences have compounded with devastating scale. Since her death, more than 275 journalists have been killed by Israeli forces across Gaza and Lebanon, the report states — a toll that, if accurate, would represent one of the deadliest periods for the press in the history of modern warfare. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have both documented record journalist death tolls in Gaza since October 2023, with CPJ describing the conflict as the deadliest on record for journalists. The connecting thread identified in the source is impunity: when accountability is absent after a high-profile killing, the argument runs, subsequent killings face even fewer restraints.
Amal Khalil and the Continued Cost
The source pairs Abu Akleh’s name with that of Amal Khalil, positioning both within the same pattern of press killings attributed to Israeli forces. While the summary does not provide additional biographical or circumstantial detail about Khalil beyond the framing, the juxtaposition is pointed: four years on, journalists are still being killed, and names are still being added to the list. The repetition of names — from Abu Akleh to Khalil — is itself part of the story the source tells, one of accumulation without consequence.
What Primary-Source Monitors Have Documented
Human rights organisations and press freedom bodies have consistently placed the killing of journalists in Gaza within a broader framework of concern about violations of international humanitarian law. Under the Geneva Conventions, journalists in conflict zones are protected civilians and may not be deliberately targeted. The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has called for independent investigations into journalist killings in Gaza. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has reported on what it describes as the systematic targeting of media workers and their families. Al-Haq, the Palestinian human rights organisation, has documented press killings as part of wider accountability submissions to international legal bodies, including the International Court of Justice. The ICJ, in its proceedings concerning South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, has heard evidence encompassing the breadth of harm to civilians — a category that includes journalists and media workers.
What to Watch
With no prosecutions arising from the Abu Akleh case and the death toll among journalists continuing to rise, the questions that dominated four years ago remain open: whether international legal mechanisms — the ICJ, the International Criminal Court, or UN-mandated inquiries — will produce binding accountability, and whether governments that described Abu Akleh’s killing as unacceptable will act consistently on that position as the names and numbers grow. The anniversary is, as the source frames it, less a moment of closure than a marker of distance traveled — and of how much has been lost in the intervening years without consequence.
Four years is long enough to trace a line. From Shireen Abu Akleh’s death in Jenin to the more than 275 journalists killed since, the record now spans two theatres of conflict, hundreds of names, and a single constant: no one has been held criminally responsible. That absence, the source argues, is not incidental to what followed — it is foundational to it.
