Israeli civil rights group Shurat Hadin has recently filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for being criminally responsible for the death of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
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The reporter was killed on May 11 during a clash between the Israel Defense Forces and armed Palestinians in the Jenin area, and according to the NGO Abbas's refusal to cooperate with Israel in the investigation could be because it may cast the Palestinians in a negative light.
Abu Akleh's death has led to various investigations, most of which blamed Israel, although the IDF insists that no conclusion can be made until the bullet – held by the PA – is submitted for ballistics analysis.
Israel's requests to submit the bullet have so far been rejected outright including as part a joint investigation with the United States acting as an observer.
Shurat Hadin alleged that the PA refuses to surrender the bullet because such an investigation would likely reveal that Abu Akleh was killed by Palestinian gunmen, not IDF soldiers. It stressed the involvement of the notorious Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization that Abbas leads.
The complaint also revealed that in the months preceding the tragic shooting incident, the IDF withdrew from the Jenin refugee camp at the request of Abbas, who said Palestinian security forces would assert control over the area.
The PA either failed in this effort or deliberately allowed Jenin to become a hornet's nest of terror, where a new alliance between the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group was made, establishing the joint "Jenin Battalion", which was involved in the gunfire exchange during the incident, according to Shurat Hadin.
Moreover, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades – one of the deadliest Palestinian terrorist groups responsible for countless suicide bombings, shootings, indiscriminate rocket attacks, and other violent operations targeting Israeli civilians – had resumed its terror activity in Israel. One such attack, perpetrated by a member of the group with a weapon capable of firing the same type of bullet round that was allegedly extracted from the body of Abu-Akleh, left six dead in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak in April.
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