Shireen Abu Akleh
شيرين أبو عاقلة
Journalist, Al Jazeera correspondent
Veteran Al Jazeera correspondent and household name across the Arab world, killed while covering an Israeli raid in Jenin in 2022.
Shireen Abu Akleh was born in Jerusalem in 1971 to a Christian Palestinian family and held both Palestinian and American citizenship. After studying journalism at Yarmouk University in Jordan, she joined Al Jazeera in 1997, the year after its launch, and became one of the Arabic channel’s best-known correspondents. For a quarter of a century she reported from across the occupied Palestinian territory — through the second intifada, wars on Gaza, and countless raids and funerals — her measured sign-off, “Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera,” familiar to a generation of viewers.
On 11 May 2022, wearing a helmet and a vest marked “PRESS,” she was shot in the head while covering an Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp. Investigations by the United Nations and several international media outlets concluded the fatal shot was fired by Israeli forces; the Israeli army later acknowledged a “high possibility” its fire killed her. Her killing, and the police attack on mourners at her Jerusalem funeral, drew worldwide condemnation.
Selected contributions
- Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent (1997–2022)
- Coverage of the second intifada, Gaza wars, and daily life under occupation
Sources
Further reading
An external biography or archive holding more on this life than the entry above.