Qatar Emir: Shireen Abu Akleh was deprived of a dignified funeral

The late Palestinian Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was deprived of a “proper funeral”, Qatar’s Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani said yesterday.

“American Christian Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered two weeks ago in Palestine and was not given a proper funeral,” Al-Thani told reporters in the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

He added that Abu Akleh’s death was no less “horrific than the killing of the seven journalists in Ukraine, and the 18 others in Palestine since 2000.”

Addressing the extensive international attention on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and its implications, Al-Thani pointed out that the governments around the world must “pay equal attention and effort to resolve all conflicts that are forgotten or ignored.”

He stressed that everyone deserves “peace, security and dignity,” describing Palestine as an “open wound since the founding of the United Nations.”

Shireen Abu Akleh: the West remains shamefully silent, but we journalists must not

“Those families have been occupied for decades with no relief in sight. The escalation in illegal settlement aggression has been relentless and the same goes for the continued attacks against the Palestinian people.”

“I keep praying that the world wakes up to the injustice and violence and finally acts,” he said.

Israel assassinated Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on 11 May while she was covering the occupation army’s storming of Jenin refugee camp. The 51-year-old was wearing a flak jacket clearly displaying the word “Press” and had a helmet on, but was still shot in the head by an Israeli sniper. Her colleagues were also shot at as they tried to rescue her.

Pallbearers at her funeral were also beaten with batons as Israel Police crackdown on her  funeral procession as it travelled through occupied East Jerusalem.