By Staff, Agencies

There has been “no suspicion of crime” in the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Tel Aviv regime claimed two weeks after ‘Israeli’ forces shot dead the veteran reporter in the occupied West Bank.

Abu Akleh, a veteran of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network's Arabic service, was shot in the head on May 11, when she was reporting on an ‘Israeli’ raid on the Jenin refugee camp.

Her tragic death sent shockwaves across the region, drawing global condemnation. The United Nations and the European Union, among others, called for a full investigation into what has been described as a deliberate killing “in cold blood.”

On Monday, the Zionist regime’s Military Advocate Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi claimed in a statement that “Given that Ms. Abu Akleh was killed in the midst of an active combat zone, there can be no immediate suspicion of criminal activity absent further evidence.”

Tomer-Yerushalmi, whose comments will definitely infuriate Palestinians, will ultimately be responsible for determining whether any individual ‘Israeli’ occupation soldier will face disciplinary action over the fatal shooting.

She alleged that the Tel Aviv regime does not yet know whether the journalist was killed by stray Palestinian gunfire or by an ‘Israeli’ bullet aimed at an armed Palestinian, meaning that she does not consider the intentionally targeting Abu Akleh by ‘Israeli’ troopers even as a possibility.

The military “is taking every effort to examine the circumstances of the incident in order to understand how Ms. Abu Akleh was killed,” Tomer-Yerushalmi went on to claim.

Eyewitnesses and journalists who were with Abu Akleh on the day she was shot described the shooting as a “deliberate attempt” to kill journalists.

Shatha Hanaysha, a news correspondent and an eyewitness to the shootings, said they were not caught up in crossfire with Palestinian fighters like the ‘Israeli’ army claimed, stressing, “It was an ‘Israeli’ sniper” that shot at them.

“We made ourselves visible to the soldiers who were stationed hundreds of meters away from us. We remained still for around 10 minutes to make sure they knew we were there as journalists,” she wrote in a blow-by-blow account of the shooting incident.

As no warning shots were fired, the journalists, all wearing press helmet and body armor, felt safe enough to move towards the camp, Hanaysha further explained. However, “Out of nowhere, we heard the first gunshot.”

Soon after the assassination, Zionist Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also claimed at first that “it appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were firing indiscriminately at the time — were responsible for the death of the journalist.”

However, the latest footage, which was filmed by a Jenin resident, shows quiet moments, with no sounds of fighting between ‘Israeli’ forces and Palestinians, confirming that Abu Akleh was shot dead by ‘Israeli’ snipers on purpose, and not accidentally by a stray bullet as Tomer-Yerushalmi trying to suggest.