By ARIAJ MUHARRAM
Staff writer
Thousands of people gathered in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday to mourn the death of an Al Jazeera journalist, as the Palestinian Authority chief blamed Israel for her death and rejected Israeli pleas for a joint probe. Shireen Abu Akleh, an iconic Palestinian-American journalist who covered the Middle East conflict for more than 25 years, was killed in a West Bank military operation on Wednesday. Journalists with her, including one who was shot and injured, claim that Israeli forces opened fire on them despite the fact that they were clearly recognized as journalists. “With this crime, they cannot hide the truth,” Abbas remarked as her body laid in state with a Palestinian flag wrapped over it in the West Bank city of Ramallah, at the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority.
