Washington announced on Monday that Ms Abu Akleh had “presumably” was killed by a shot from an Israeli position, adding that she had no reason to believe in a deliberate attempt to kill the star correspondent of Al-Jazeera while she was covering an Israeli military operation in Jenin on May 11, in the occupied West Bank.
But, at the same time on Monday, the Jewish state said that it had itself conducted an examination of the famous bullet, which the Palestinian Authority had always refused to entrust to the Israelis but had agreed to entrust to the Americans.
The Palestinian Authority immediately denounced on Monday an attempt to ” to hide the truth “ on the death of the journalist, whose sudden disappearance shook the Middle East.
On Tuesday, the spokesman for American diplomacy, Ned Price, tried to defuse the controversy by assuring that the analysis of the projectile had been carried out by two experienced members of the services of the US Security Coordinator (USSC), the team American official responsible for organizing security cooperation with the Palestinians.
‘Local experts, whether Israeli or Palestinian, did not carry out the USSC’s examination of the bullet’said Mr. Price, without however specifying the identity or the nationality of the two experts mentioned.
“The USSC had full custody of the ball from the time it was given to it by the Palestinian Authority until the time the USSC returned it to the Palestinian Authority”he specified.