The purpose of Israeli attacks against journalists can’t change: integral to the foundation and maintenance of the Zionist project is manufactured consent for the “removal” of a people whose memory and existence Israel considers a threat.

Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by the same Israeli bullets directed against her fellow Palestinians. Those bullets have continued to fly, and the Israeli war machine has taken the lives of nearly 300 Palestinians in the past year. Shireen’s was one of them.

If you ask me how I feel a year after Shireen Abu Akleh’s assassination, I would tell you that I feel angry because both Shireen and I died under the tree that day. Shireen awaits justice from heaven, while I wait for it down here on earth.

A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows the Israeli military has killed 20 journalists since 2001 and not one soldier has been put on trial.

There is an ebb and flow between hearing the stories, being on the ground reporting on the developments of war, and being a part of this reality at the same time. No certainty of what can be found, no real safety, and a looming feeling of endlessness. 

Zionist watchdog groups like Honest Reporting have launched smear campaigns to silence the voices of Palestinian journalists, often causing many of them to lose their jobs. Media organizations have to ask themselves: will they continue to allow such groups to dictate their journalism, or will they dare to be as fearless as the Palestinian journalists they claim to support?

Palestinian and Arab journalists express solidarity with Palestinian journalists who have been targeted by Zionist watchdog organizations, in an effort to censor their writings bringing attention to the Palestinian struggle for liberation. Shatha Hammad is the most recent journalist to be targeted by the watchdog group, Honest Reporting.

Journalism in Palestine becomes a battlefield where the only way to tackle all the injustices swallowing this speck of the world, is to give justice to the story.

In the weeks after Shireen was killed, and in the face of countless efforts to discredit them, their experience, and their testimonies, these journalists persevered. Amidst all the trauma and grief they were experiencing, from losing a hero and friend, they chose to speak up, and continued telling the truth.

“Doing and saying nothing just enables more killings”: Rep. Rashida Tlaib calls for action after killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh