Baseless CNN Report Claims Al Jazeera Reporter Abu Akleh Killed In “Targeted Attack By Israeli Forces”
IDF: The CNN “claim that the shooting was intentional has no basis.”
Continuing with its biased and irresponsible reporting practices, CNN published a baseless report accusing the Israeli military of deliberately killing Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh earlier this month. In an article on Wednesday, CNN claimed that “Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces.”
CNN based this serious allegation against the Israeli military on thin and flimsy evidence. The report relied on “eyewitnesses testimonies.” But two key eyewitnesses featured in the article, namely PLO-Fatah lawmaker Jamal Huweil and Palestinian reporter Shatha Hanaysha, have a history of glorifying acts of terror against Israeli civilians (see embedded tweets below). The expert hired by CNN, Chris Cobb-Smith, regularly engages in anti-Israel activities, the noted blogger Elder of Ziyon pointed out.
Al Jazeera reporter Abu Akleh died of a gunshot wound on May 11 while she reported from Jenin, a terrorist stronghold for jihadist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Video footage from the scene showed Palestinian gunmen shooting at Israeli troops conducting an anti-terror raid in response to recent terrorist attacks in Israel.
Palestinian Authority rejected the Israeli offer to conduct a joint inquiry into the shoot-out and refused to submit the bullet that killed the Al Jazeera journalist to a ballistic probe in Israel.
CNN Report Based on Questionable Testimonies
Many informed Twitter users questioned the credibility of eyewitnesses picked by CNN:
Same Jamal Huweil, "witness" for @CNN's key claim that Israel's soldiers shot Shireen, praised multiple terror attacks on multiple televised appearances…just weeks before CNN based their investigation on him.
Here he praises knife-murder of 4.https://t.co/eLdO8xidIB
— Daniel Laufer (@lauferdaniel) May 25, 2022
The @CNN investigation claiming Israel deliberately shot Sheerin Abu Akla relies on the testimony of a Palestinian reporter named Shatha Hanaysha.
Here are some of Shatha’s tweets. Perhaps someone who dreams of “rockets of the resistance” isn’t an impartial eye witness. pic.twitter.com/kaLwIGZsER
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) May 24, 2022
One of the "experts" hired by @CNN to claim that Israel deliberately targeted Shireen Abu Akleh is Chris Cobb-Smith – who is a tem member of the virulently anti-Israel Forensics Architecture.
Could you guys at least PRETEND to find an objective expert, CNN?
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) May 24, 2022
Dovid Efune, editor-in-chief of the New York-based Algemeiner Journal, wrote a detailed Twitter thread debunking many of the claims made in the CNN report.
Thread:
A new @CNN report is now claiming "evidence" that Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in a "targeted attack" by Israeli forces.
It's a wildly irresponsible report, reminiscent of the al-Durrah libel of 2000 that fueled the deadly 2nd Intifada.
— Dovid Efune (@Efune) May 24, 2022
CNN Peddles Terrorist Propaganda, Antisemitic Blood Libel
The baseless CNN report will only add fuel to the fire by giving credence to the propaganda already being peddled by Palestinian terrorist organizations. Israel-based blogger David Lange aptly called the biased report “an antisemitic blood libel.”
“CNN’s report is anti-Israel propaganda masquerading as serious journalism, aimed to incite against the Jewish state,” Lange wrote on his popular blog Israellycool. “And yes, it is an antisemitic blood libel,” he concluded.
IDF: CNN Claims Have “No Basis”
The Israeli government called out the CNN report for its factual inaccuracies. The CNN “investigation is full of inaccuracies and question marks regarding the reliability of some of the evidence presented in it. It is not possible to reach a firm conclusion before completing a thorough investigation,” the Israeli news agency TPS reported, citing an official source.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which has repeatedly urged the Palestinians to allow joint investigation into the incident, dismissed the report as ‘baseless.’
The Jerusalem Post reported the IDF’s responded to CNN’s report:
“The IDF has been investigating the circumstances of the reporter’s death in a thorough manner since the incident. The interim investigation revealed it was not possible to determine the source of the shooting,” [the IDF] said in a statement. “The claim that the shooting was intentional has no basis.”
“CNN‘s claims that the IDF intentionally shot journalist Shireen abu Akleh have no basis,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll. “The IDF acts in Jenin only to prevent terrorism against Israel’s citizens. This report is filled with inaccuracies and unreliable testimonies. We once again call on the Palestinians to cooperate with Israel in the investigation of the incident, but they continue to refuse.
What do they have to hide?”
So I watched & reread this CNN "investigative" report.
1. New footage non-existent
2. Several objective "eyewitnesses" can't admit that Palestinian gunmen were shooting at the troops, but felt targeted.
3. The "independent" military analyst must be superman to conclude intent. https://t.co/m769eIZ9Sn— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) May 24, 2022
While CNN smears the IDF, Palestinian terrorist activities continue unabated — particularly around the jihadist bastion of Jenin where the May 11 shooting took place:
The Jenin area is a hotspot of terrorism.
Earlier today, Palestinian gunmen fired at Israeli forces during counterterrorism activity near Jenin.
We apprehended a wanted terrorist with 2 M16 rifles and an IDF military vest. pic.twitter.com/uhPnQRn3k1
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 24, 2022
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Comments
There is a Palestinian video of that shooting you can hear them saying they got one but no Israeli soldier had been killed in the skirmish
“Continuing with its biased and irresponsible reporting practices, CNN published a baseless report”
Yeah, but if CNN reported something about war in Ukraine that would be the gospel truth and everybody would eat it up.
I have been reporting on Ukraine for the Legal Insurrection, and haven’t quoted CNN once.
Yes, I know, that’s why I thought it would be safe to say that here.
No idea what your point is.
Given the quality of the reporting from the ME, it seems only fair that the Israelis should “target” reporters. No CNN reporter should survive.
Not as bad as the BBC, which dug up and recycled the old blood libel about the so-called “Jenin massacre” in 2002, and when challenged with the undisputed fact that the whole thing was invented out of whole cloth, and rather than 600 civilians being massacred, in fact 52 terrorists were killed in combat (along with 23 IDF soldiers, which was the real scandal, since the Israeli government deliberately sacrificed their lives for the sake of good publicity), the BBC merely added that “the number was since downsized”, as if rather than massacring 600 civilians in cold blood the IDF had merely massacred 400 or maybe only 300.
But if Israel were serious about defending itself from this sort of blood libel it would ban CNN from the country, as well as the BBC and any other service that repeats such lies. Make it clear to all the rest of the news industry that a condition of being allowed to report from the country is that they must do their best to report the truth. No coverups, but no blood libels either.
Since the truth is that in the IDF’s 74 years of existence it has never once deliberately targeted an innocent person, it has nothing to hide. But allowing known liars access, so they can pretend to report crimes that didn’t happen, gives Israel no benefit, so why allow it?
Banning those folks wouldn’t help. Most of the “news” organizations use local stringers* for their reports from the “occupied territories”. And they don’t do any due diligence editing.
(* Remember the one with the kid that was shot hiding behind the barrel? When they found other footage it turned out he was next to dad, who was shooting at Israeli soldiers. Palestinian “photojournalist” stringer.)
You are referring to Little Saint Mohammed Al-Durah. His father was not shooting at anyone. He’s clearly visible on camera together with his son, and they’re taking shelter. But from where the cameraman was standing he could clearly see &Mdash; and must have seen — that the bullets the father and son were sheltering from were being fired by the Arab terrorists. There was no possible way that IDF fire could have come their way, not without magic bullets that change direction like a curveball. Then there’s the small detail that at the end of the video the boy is still clearly alive and moving, and the cameraman saw that. He was alive and uninjured when he was loaded into the ambulance. However I doubt that he left the ambulance alive; his martyrdom was far too useful for the Arabs to risk some naïve reporter seeing him alive later.
Sounds like a good idea, but wouldn’t CNN, BBC etc just report more made-up stories and refer to “a source close to the incident that spoke on condition if anonymity?”
Yes, of course they would, but they do that anyway, so why reward them?
Notice that the Palestinians refused to let anyone see the bullet, which is the evidence showing who actually killed her.
That makes me think it’s a Palestinian bullet. Now the Israelis know not to let reporters go with them.
“Baseless CNN Report”
Is there any other kind?
CNN has claimed they are going to be moving back to their original concept of reporting hard factual news. Well I say…”Ya can’t remove stripes off the Tiger without getting bit in the Ass”… Do ya think CNN was referring to news reporting excluding the foreign press or picking and choosing according to which way the political foreign policies are blowing?
Can’t speak on hard facts as I never turn into CNN unless forced to in an Airport.
CNN has had the worst and most biased coverage against Israel for years-quoting apologists for terror as objective is yet more evidence of that long established fact
The Fourth Estate is biased… nay, prejudiced. A well documented source of handmade tales. News at… never.
Reporters who prate about them being the “fourth estate” usually can’t name the first three.
CNN went from so totally credible just quote it uncritically as the gods truth and insert insult directed at Kissinger for learning from decades of regime change agendas; to a non-credible source you should ignore in under a nanosecond between it reporting on Russia to reporting on Israel.
So do we trust it uncritically or not? If we trust it uncritically the Israelis deliberately murdered this Al Jazeera “journalist” if not we should stop pretending to when it reports on Russia.
The “expert” fake news CNN relied on is with Amnesty International who routinely publish baseless smears against Israel.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-cobb-smith-34ba264?originalSubdomain=uk
Al Jazeera is practically a terrorist propaganda outlet…I’m sure the “martyr” would have wanted their death to further the cause.
Here’s MSNBC version of blood libel from a few years back. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIYJXyPPO0