Shireen Abu Akleh was a household name. If you have been following the Palestinian struggle, you already know her. Or perhaps, it is through her reporting that you first learned about it.

Shireen was an incredible, distinguished journalist who reported with so much patience and professionalism. She was such a prominent figure that her mere presence disturbed the occupation. A friend of hers shared a story of a time Shireen was reporting in Hebron and faced an Israeli tear gas attack. Even as her eyes watered and she began to choke, she refused to stop, she stood steadfast and finished her report.

I don’t think words have been created to describe that level of strength and resilience. She is the face of the Palestinian people who shared that exact resilience: people who refuse to be silenced.

Shireen saw journalism as a form of resistance. Before she stepped in front of a microphone to speak or write a report, you could guarantee that she had physically experienced the reality of what she was talking about. For instance, her friend, Nadia Naser-Najjab, recalled Shireen’s report on the suffering of Palestinian laborers working in the ’48 Occupied Territories. Shireen didn’t just research and write the story from a distance, instead, she actually travelled alongside the workers, crossed the checkpoints, and experienced their distress first hand before ever raising her pen to write.

Despite the fact that most of her documentation had been about their struggle, she always found the time to celebrate Palestinian achievements. Like once, she wrote about an 80-year-old woman from Asira Al Shamaliya village who learned how to use technology and social media to communicate with her children. A person who is usually the one to inspire become so inspired that she shared this story to break the stereotype that the elderly cannot adapt to modern technology. It was her way of showing that despite living with so little, their joy and resilience expand beyond universes.

Even with her demanding schedule, her ambition to constantly improve never left her. She began learning Hebrew and she became quite good at it quickly because she had a stronger why. She wanted to understand the language of the occupier so she can closely follow and analyse the Israeli media which will help her report better.

Throughout her career, she was able to get her message across without even speaking the global language. Her reports helped the international community to understand the Palestinian struggle. Her reports constantly called for justice and for Israel to be held accountable for its actions against Palestinians. Her pursuit of showing the world exactly what they faced went on until the very moment her life was stolen.

She spent her entire life seeking justice for others, only for May 11th to come around, and now, the world seeks justice for her.

On May 11th, 2022, Shireen was covering a military raid in Jenin refugee camp wearing the clearly marked blue “PRESS” vest and helmet. In a split second, she was on the floor after a bullet struck her just below the ear, in the narrow gap where her helmet met her vest so precisely that it was obvious that she had been targeted. Another journalist, Ali al-Samoudi who was with her, also got shot but he survived. Her colleagues hiding behind trees desperately tried to reach her but the gunfire didn’t stop.

I still vividly remember those videos and pictures of her lifeless body. It sent shockwaves far beyond Palestine. For twenty-five years, Shireen’s calm, steady voice had entered millions homes, signing off with her iconic, “Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera, Palestine.”

To see that voice silenced felt like an attack on truth itself. The grief was deeply felt by an entire generation that had grown up watching her.

The regime couldn’t even let her rest easy, they even attacked her funeral procession and all that we could do was watch with absolute horror. Even during her funeral, she was able to unite Palestinians and everyone across the world that grieved her, so much so that the occupation simply could not tolerate that display of unity and strength, so they purposely disrupted the peaceful, heart breaking procession, attacking the pallbearers that her coffin was also about to fall.

But that doesn’t define her. Shireen is not what they did to her.

Shireen was a person full of compassion, and her sense of humour always lightened the room. She was someone who naturally came up with reasonable solutions to problems so much so that she was affectionately known as the “diplomatic friend.” She meant so many different things to different people, especially to young Palestinian women, for whom she literally redefined what it meant to be a female journalist in Palestine. She cleared a path, allowing an entire generation to build upon her legacy.

As I write this, I find myself constantly stumbling over the grammar, forced to use was instead of is because her absence still feels entirely surreal. Untimely death has become a subject that Palestinians know by heart but it is difficult to comprehend what it must feel like to lose the people you love so suddenly on a daily basis. Since her murder on May 11th 2022, the targeting of members of the press has escalated to horrifying numbers, with hundreds of Palestinian journalists killed in the line of duty, making the occupied territories the deadliest place in history for the media.

How is that normal? How has the world allowed the intentional silencing of truth to become such a constant statistic?

Ultimately, more than what the regime did to kill her, I want her to be remembered for how she lived. Shireen should be known as an incredible female journalist who achieved wonders and a rare soul who stood as a beacon of hope, inspiration, and truth in a world that desperately needed it.

Penned By:

Rtr. Rana Rilwan

Editor 25.26