Saudi prince criticises Western reporting on killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

A prominent Saudi prince criticised a report published by the American newspaper the New York Times on the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, accusing the paper of “false slogans and double standards.”

Saudi Prince Abdul Rahman Bin Musa’id posted a photo of a news article by the New York Times on Twitter, with the article saying that Shireen was “killed” but not giving details of who killed her. He commented by saying: “Not a week has passed! From day one, the long-standing defender of principles, human rights and freedom of the press, The New York Times words its headline as Shireen Abu Akleh was killed, in passive tense, without referring to who killed her, even though the journalist is American.”

“How false your slogans are and your double standards.”

Bin Musa’id described the assassination of Shireen as a “heinous crime by the Israeli occupation forces… a condemnable, abhorrent and cowardly act.”

The Saudi prince continued, “This news will echo for a week at most among defenders of human rights and freedom of press in America and the West, and then you will not hear from them, and they will bury this news in cemeteries of the forgotten.”

READ: Israel is trying to exonerate itself after murdering journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

On Wednesday, the Israeli occupation forces assassinated Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering the situation and developments in Jenin camp. Abu Akleh was wearing a flak jacket clearly displaying the word ‘press’ and had a helmet on, however a sniper bullet entered her head from her ear, killing her. Colleagues around her were also shot at when they tried to rescue her at the scene.

The United Nations, US, UK and EU have called for a thorough investigation into 51-year-old’s death.

The Israeli narrative changed four times throughout the day, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett saying in a statement: “According to the information Israel has gathered ‘it appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were indiscriminately firing at the time — were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist.'”

However, rights group B’Tselem said the Israeli army’s narrative is “untrue“. “This morning, B’Tselem’s field researcher in Jenin documented the exact locations in which the Palestinian gunman depicted in a video distributed by the Israeli army, fired, as well as the exact location in which Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed,” B’Tselem tweeted.

It reiterated: “Documentation of Palestinian gunfire distributed by Israeli military cannot be the gunfire that killed Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.”