1 YEAR SINCE THE KILLING OF SHIREEN ABU AKLEH! The Israeli occupation forces had been raiding the city of Jenin in the West Bank since April 2022. On 6 May 2022, Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh headed to Jenin for the last time, only to return as a martyr. The occupation forces killed Shireen on the morning of 11 May 2022 during their storming of the Jenin camp. This news shook all Palestinians. On the same day, the Israeli occupation forces shot the young Palestinian man, Rami Sorour, near Bab Al-Qattanin which is one of the gates leading to Al-Aqsa Mosque. The photographer, Aya Amin, was near the site where Rami was injured. She filmed the aftermath of the shooting and wrote this testimony about it.
The famous Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was martyred, This day was supposed to be another ‘normal’ day at work – it’s fascinating how persistently we try to enforce normality into our daily lives in a city that is far from normal. All the news about Shireen discussed her last moments, but these reports kept being interrupted by new pictures and videos coming in from the scene, fuelling people’s anger, shock, and inability to process the killing.
I wrap up my work at the Al-Aqsa Mosque library and make my way to the quiet corner of Bab Al-Ghawanmeh (one gate that leads to Al- Aqsa Mosque located on the north-western corner of it). I want to try to put things into perspective, or at least try to process what happened by writing it down on paper.
As I sit at the gate, the sound of continuous gunfire comes to disrupt my thoughts, and I see policemen rushing towards Bab Al-Qattanin (one of Al-Aqsa main Mosque gates that leads to Al Aqsa Mosque). A normal human being’s reaction when hearing bullets would be to flee the area, however, because we Jerusalemites take after our city, I defy the ‘normal’ and run in the direction of bullets when I hear them.
The sound of bullets leads me to the scene. I see a young man lying on the floor at the entrance of Bab Al-Qattanin; he was bleeding and rolling on the ground as policemen on high alert encircled him. I hide near the fire station on the roof of the Dome of the Rock, take out my camera, and start snapping pictures of the young man in front of me. The police evacuate all the alleys and attack whoever dared to take out a camera or a phone to film what was happening. Of all the people in the area, only I was able to get a shot of the man left bleeding on the floor. I take a video of the scene, send it to one of the news platforms, and quickly delete it off my phone.
At the end of the day, I am left with only one thought. We Jerusalemites have all had our share of injury at one point, whether from a rubber bullet, or a baton. We all could have been in Shireen’s place; the sole difference was that our injuries were not fatal.
Read the full story here:
In English: https://shorturl.at/sCPU1
In Arabic: https://shorturl.at/yBMT2
