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The Hunt for a Journalist’s Killer · Question Everything

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to Question Everything. Today on the show, the mystery
0:03
Speaker 1: of a journalist's killing finally solved. Our producer Sophie Casis
0:08
Speaker 1: has the story.
0:21
Speaker 2: As a kid, Shireen Abu Akleh lived in Jerusalem and
0:25
Speaker 2: New Jersey. In adulthood, she became one of the most
0:29
Speaker 2: well-known journalists in the Middle East. She was a TV
0:33
Speaker 2: correspondent for Al Jazeera for over two decades, doing dangerous
0:37
Speaker 2: on-the-ground reporting on Israel's occupation of Palestine. She was known
0:42
Speaker 2: for the distinctive way she signed off her broadcasts.
0:45
Speaker 3: Shirin Abu Aqleh, Al Jazeera, Al Quds Al Muhtalla.
0:49
Speaker 2: Shirin Abu Aqleh, Al Jazeera, Occupied Jerusalem. Three years ago,
0:59
Speaker 2: on May 11, 2022, while reporting on an Israeli military
1:04
Speaker 2: raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank,
1:07
Speaker 2: Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed by Israeli forces.
1:12
Speaker 2: Shireen was Palestinian-American. She was the first and only American
1:17
Speaker 2: journalist to be killed by the Israeli military. No one
1:20
Speaker 2: has been held accountable.
1:22
Speaker 3: The truth of what happened to her that day was
1:25
Speaker 3: sort of lost in the obfuscation of around her death.
1:29
Speaker 2: This is reporter Dion Nissenbaum. He and a team of
1:32
Speaker 2: journalists released the documentary Who Killed Shireen? a couple weeks ago.
1:37
Speaker 3: Her shooting was captured on video. Eyewitnesses at the scene
1:43
Speaker 3: said from the very beginning that she was killed by
1:46
Speaker 3: an Israeli soldier, but the Israeli military presented a series
1:51
Speaker 3: of false stories saying that she might have been accidentally
1:56
Speaker 3: killed by Palestinian gunmen.
1:59
Speaker 2: Not true.
2:00
Speaker 3: They said that she might have been killed in crossfire.
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Speaker 2: Also not true. In the video footage, it's daylight. Shireen
2:08
Speaker 2: is wearing her helmet and blue flak jacket, which had
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Speaker 2: the word PRESS clearly displayed in all caps across her
2:14
Speaker 2: chest and back. She was shot in the back of
2:17
Speaker 2: the head. Independent media and human rights groups investigated and
2:22
Speaker 2: concluded that Shireen was deliberately shot at and killed by
2:25
Speaker 2: an Israeli soldier. And eventually, the Israeli military itself admitted to, quote,
2:31
Speaker 2: a high possibility that Shireen was killed by Israeli fire.
2:35
Speaker 2: And still, no consequences. Few answers or even plausible explanations
2:41
Speaker 2: from the Israeli military as to why. And no consequences
2:45
Speaker 2: from the U.S. government either.
2:47
Speaker 3: The Biden administration initially called for the shooter to be prosecuted.
2:53
Speaker 3: And then when it became clear that Israel was responsible.
2:57
Speaker 3: They sort of diluted their message and started making vague
3:01
Speaker 3: calls for Israel to change the way it operates with
3:05
Speaker 3: its rules of engagement in the West Bank, which Israel
3:08
Speaker 3: refused to do anyway. The U.S. government essentially gave Israel
3:15
Speaker 3: a pass on this. And so the message that Israel
3:20
Speaker 3: got from that essentially was that they could kill an
3:24
Speaker 3: American journalist in the West Bank without there being any repercussions.
3:29
Speaker 2: Since Shireen's killing, around 200 more journalists have been killed
3:33
Speaker 2: by the Israeli military, the majority local Palestinian journalists. To date,
3:38
Speaker 2: the Committee to Protect Journalists has determined that at least
3:41
Speaker 2: 17 of those journalists were killed intentionally by Israeli forces.
3:46
Speaker 2: The CPJ classifies them as murderers. Israel's response to October
3:51
Speaker 2: 7th has become the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded.
3:56
Speaker 2: Dayan described Shireen's killing as a critical turning point in
4:00
Speaker 2: Israeli violence towards journalists, the start of a dangerous new chapter.
4:05
Speaker 3: One of the most troubling evolutions in the Israeli position
4:09
Speaker 3: on this was a tweet that the chief Israeli military
4:12
Speaker 3: international spokesperson put out a few months ago. And the
4:16
Speaker 3: tweet basically said, wearing a blue vest does not turn
4:21
Speaker 3: a terrorist into a journalist. And that message was then
4:27
Speaker 3: amplified by Israel defenders. So if you are a legitimate
4:33
Speaker 3: journalist and you put on your blue vest and you're
4:35
Speaker 3: around Israeli soldiers, you have to assume that they can
4:38
Speaker 3: consider you a target. So that whole evolution in how
4:42
Speaker 3: Israel looks at journalists, we think can be traced back
4:47
Speaker 3: in many ways, to Shireen's killing, where the first American
4:51
Speaker 3: journalist is killed by Israel, there are no repercussions for it,
4:56
Speaker 3: and they can see that America is not even going
4:58
Speaker 3: to stand up for its own citizens when they're killed
5:01
Speaker 3: by the Israeli military.
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Speaker 2: So Dayan and his team of reporters set out to
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Speaker 2: do what the U.S. government wouldn't, get to the bottom
5:10
Speaker 2: of who exactly killed Shireen Abu Akleh.
5:17
Speaker 3: It was easier for me to get Israeli officials to
5:21
Speaker 3: talk about their covert attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities than
5:27
Speaker 3: it was for me to find out the identity of
5:30
Speaker 3: this soldier.
5:32
Speaker 2: And yet, Dayan and his colleagues, they did it. Today
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Speaker 2: on Question Everything, former Middle East correspondent for The Wall
5:41
Speaker 2: Street Journal, Dayan Nissenbaum, tells me the story of just
5:44
Speaker 2: how he and his team figured something out that government
5:48
Speaker 2: officials in Israel and the U.S. didn't want us to know.
5:53
Speaker 2: Who killed Shireen? I'm Sophie Casas.
6:03
Speaker 3: Hi, Dayan.
6:04
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining me.
6:05
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
6:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much has happened in Palestine and Israel since
6:12
Speaker 2: Shireen was killed in 2022. And, you know, why is
6:17
Speaker 2: it so important to focus in on this case specifically?
6:22
Speaker 3: At its base, you know, this was a personal story
6:25
Speaker 3: for us. My colleague in the film, Fatima Abdul-Karim, knew Shireen.
6:31
Speaker 3: You know, they were friends. And we had personal connections
6:35
Speaker 3: to this. She mattered to us as a person, regardless
6:38
Speaker 3: of whether she was American or Palestinian. And I'm an
6:43
Speaker 3: American person. You know, I was kidnapped in Gaza. I
6:46
Speaker 3: was detained in Turkey. And in both of those cases,
6:49
Speaker 3: the U.S. government played a direct role in rescuing me
6:54
Speaker 3: from what could have been, you know, very challenging situations.
6:58
Speaker 3: So to see the U.S. government not essentially step up
7:04
Speaker 3: and help another American journalist facing, you know, a fatal
7:09
Speaker 3: situation and not defend her the way that they defended
7:13
Speaker 3: me was disturbing.
7:16
Speaker 2: This film, this investigation at its heart, is a story
7:21
Speaker 2: about an American cover-up, a cover-up by the Biden administration.
7:24
Speaker 2: And I'd love to kind of put that into a
7:28
Speaker 2: bit of context that I find pretty helpful, which is
7:33
Speaker 2: the difference in the U.S. 's response to Shireen's killing
7:37
Speaker 2: versus killings of other American journalists elsewhere. And I'm thinking
7:42
Speaker 2: specifically of about Jamal Khashoggi, among others.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Jamal Khashoggi's killing is definitely the most apt, I think,
7:51
Speaker 3: in this case. A green card holder, a Washington Post
7:54
Speaker 3: columnist who was targeted by this Saudi hit squad in
7:58
Speaker 3: the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and his body was apparently
8:03
Speaker 3: chopped up and never recovered. And the U.S. government very
8:08
Speaker 3: quickly denounced Saudi Arabia and President Biden, who was on
8:13
Speaker 3: the campaign trail when that happened, vowed to treat Saudi
8:16
Speaker 3: Arabia as a pariah. The CIA did its own investigation
8:21
Speaker 3: and concluded that he had been intentionally killed and that
8:25
Speaker 3: the crown prince of Saudi Arabia had likely ordered it.
8:30
Speaker 3: And under the Biden administration, they put Saudi officials on
8:33
Speaker 3: do not enter lists into America. And in Shireen's case,
8:38
Speaker 3: you saw absolutely none of that. No CIA investigation. When
8:45
Speaker 3: the FBI launched an investigation, Israel publicly rebuked them and
8:49
Speaker 3: said they wouldn't cooperate, which essentially shut it down. And
8:55
Speaker 3: in the course of doing the documentary, we found out that,
8:58
Speaker 3: you know, President Biden didn't even raise the issue with
9:02
Speaker 3: the prime minister that, you know, an Israeli official said
9:05
Speaker 3: it wasn't a topic of discussion between the two of them.
9:07
Speaker 3: I think, you know, Shireen was... seen as a hyphenated American,
9:12
Speaker 3: a Palestinian American with an emphasis on the Palestinian. And
9:17
Speaker 3: she worked for Al Jazeera, which is often criticized by Israel.
9:24
Speaker 3: But the responses were night and day between how they
9:28
Speaker 3: responded when it was Saudi Arabia and how they responded
9:31
Speaker 3: when it was Israel.
9:32
Speaker 2: So it's been almost three years now since Shireen was killed.
9:36
Speaker 2: She was killed in 2022. And, you know, when it
9:40
Speaker 2: first happened, there were media and human rights groups that
9:44
Speaker 2: did investigations. And they all basically concluded that it was
9:50
Speaker 2: very likely that she'd been killed by the Israeli military.
9:53
Speaker 2: So I'm curious why it was important for you and
9:57
Speaker 2: your team to go that one exploration. step further and
10:02
Speaker 2: figure out actually who the individual was that pulled the
10:06
Speaker 2: trigger and killed her.
10:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were several things that drove me mad about
10:12
Speaker 3: the coverage of Shireen's killing. There were a series of
10:18
Speaker 3: solid investigations using, you know, visual investigations, forensics, analysis of audio,
10:27
Speaker 3: great investigations by Forensic Architecture, New York Times, AP, CNN,
10:32
Speaker 3: Washington Post, Bellingcat. They all concluded the same thing. She
10:38
Speaker 3: was killed by an Israeli soldier. And yet, when I
10:42
Speaker 3: would talk to the key U.S. officials who were directly
10:46
Speaker 3: involved in her shooting, They didn't understand what happened that day.
10:51
Speaker 3: They had this false narrative in their head that somehow
10:56
Speaker 3: she had been caught in the crossfire or that she
10:59
Speaker 3: was near militants. And neither of those things were true.
11:04
Speaker 3: But when I talk to people about that, they won't
11:06
Speaker 3: accept it. The other thing, the other reason we wanted
11:10
Speaker 3: to find the actual shooter is that U.S. officials said
11:15
Speaker 3: that they couldn't determine whether her killing was a crime,
11:20
Speaker 3: whether it was a murder, without finding out what that
11:23
Speaker 3: soldier was thinking. But throughout the investigations, the Israeli military
11:30
Speaker 3: refused to make the soldier who fired those fatal shots
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Speaker 3: available to the U.S. They wouldn't let him speak to U.S. officials.
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Speaker 3: They wouldn't make his statement available to U.S. officials. They
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Speaker 3: It's one of those things that makes you wonder, why
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Speaker 3: are they working so hard to hide it? And we
11:55
Speaker 3: wanted to get to the bottom. We wanted the family
11:57
Speaker 3: to have some closure. Who had killed their sister, their aunt?
12:04
Speaker 3: And was there a crime here that had been committed
12:08
Speaker 3: against an American citizen? But I was pretty much the
12:13
Speaker 3: only person on our team who actually believed that we
12:16
Speaker 3: could find the shooter. Yeah. You know, I had longtime
12:24
Speaker 3: colleagues based in Israel who never thought we would find
12:27
Speaker 3: the name, just, you know, that was so closely held.
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Speaker 3: It was hard for anybody to imagine we would actually
12:34
Speaker 3: track him down.
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Speaker 2: So where did you start? Take me through kind of
12:40
Speaker 2: the first steps of your investigation.
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Speaker 3: Sure. The only piece of information that we had about
12:45
Speaker 3: the shooter was that he was a member of this
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Speaker 3: elite Israeli military unit called Duvdovan. which has been lionized
12:55
Speaker 3: in the entertainment world by this show Fauda, which is
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Speaker 3: on Netflix. It's a very storied, celebrated unit. It means
13:05
Speaker 3: cherry in Hebrew.
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Speaker 2: Cherry like the cherry on top.
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Speaker 3: Exactly. Then they sort of talk about themselves as being
13:12
Speaker 3: the cherry on top of the special operations dessert in Israel.
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Speaker 3: I did get a tip early on. that Israel had
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Speaker 3: given the US the soldier's name in the last year
13:25
Speaker 3: or so. And so that was the first place I went.
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Speaker 3: I had close contacts with a number of people directly
13:32
Speaker 3: involved in it with access to this information, which would
13:37
Speaker 3: have been classified. I would message these guys on Signal
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Speaker 3: and say, you know, I heard you guys maybe got
13:45
Speaker 3: the name. And they would say, no comment. And I
13:47
Speaker 3: was like, well, can you tell me if you even
13:50
Speaker 3: have the name, nobody would bite on it. And then
13:54
Speaker 3: we went to Washington and I sat down with these
13:57
Speaker 3: guys and it turned out that actually they didn't have
13:59
Speaker 3: the name. And so it was a total dead end
14:03
Speaker 3: for us. So the other route that we went was
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Speaker 3: finding people that were with Duvdovan, the unit. Like the
14:17
Speaker 3: best people early lead we got is that there was
14:21
Speaker 3: an Israeli filmmaker named Oren Rosenfeld who had done a
14:25
Speaker 3: film about Duv Devon and how they'd sort of become
14:28
Speaker 3: these Hollywood celebrities. And it turned out that he was
14:33
Speaker 3: actually brought in to meet the Israeli soldier a few
14:38
Speaker 3: weeks after the shooting. He's the only Israeli person, reporter,
14:44
Speaker 3: journalist I have found who actually met the soldier But
14:49
Speaker 3: it was off the record. The guy didn't give his name.
14:52
Speaker 3: He wore, you know, a balaclava on his face covering
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Speaker 3: his identity. It was a very short conversation. Right. The
15:00
Speaker 3: way that we sort of broke the code ultimately was
15:04
Speaker 3: connecting with a network of people that were connected to Duvdevan.
15:12
Speaker 2: All right.
15:13
Speaker 3: What do you got for us?
15:14
Speaker 2: Well, I have a contact in Duvdevan.
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Speaker 3: I have received confirmation that he was on the scene
15:19
Speaker 3: and he participated in the operation that saw the death
15:24
Speaker 3: of Shirin. Oh, he agreed to, this guy's actually agreed
15:28
Speaker 3: to talk? Amazing. And we were able to sort of
15:32
Speaker 3: plug in to a group of these people who, surprisingly,
15:39
Speaker 3: a number of them were willing to talk to us.
15:43
Speaker 3: I'm sure you've had this where you're doing an interview
15:46
Speaker 3: or you're talking to people and you're thinking, you shouldn't
15:49
Speaker 3: be telling me this. You shouldn't be talking to us.
15:53
Speaker 3: When I'm doing journalism, I find that when you bring
15:57
Speaker 3: information to the table, that often helps jar things loose
16:03
Speaker 3: that you won't otherwise get just by asking an open question.
16:07
Speaker 3: You need to show... the person you're talking to that
16:10
Speaker 3: you know you're talking about, that you've done some research.
16:15
Speaker 3: And so we went into this key interview in kind
16:18
Speaker 3: of a clandestine location outside of Jerusalem with this active
16:23
Speaker 3: Israeli soldier. He's got his machine gun with him. You
16:27
Speaker 3: can't see anything that can identify him in the film.
16:31
Speaker 3: And so we started just by talking about the unit.
16:34
Speaker 3: You know, what does Duvdevon mean? How is it operating
16:38
Speaker 3: in the West Bank? And then we come to ask
16:41
Speaker 3: him about, you know, what happened in Janine. Duve Devon
16:45
Speaker 3: was involved in this controversial incident. What was your understanding
16:48
Speaker 3: of what happened that day? His voice is disguised so
16:53
Speaker 3: he could talk candidly. Did you ever talk to the
16:56
Speaker 3: guy who fired those shots? Of course.
16:59
Speaker 1: I know him personally.
17:00
Speaker 2: He says, of course. I know him personally.
17:03
Speaker 3: And... Right off the bat, he says, well, first thing
17:07
Speaker 3: you need to know is the soldier who did this
17:09
Speaker 3: is dead. I won't say that the guy that shot
17:14
Speaker 3: this shot is dead already.
17:20
Speaker 2: Dayan and his team had heard this from another source, too.
17:24
Speaker 2: They looked at records of Duvdevan soldiers who had died.
17:27
Speaker 2: That narrowed the pool quite a bit. Then they were
17:30
Speaker 2: able to narrow it further by looking at ages, enlistment dates.
17:34
Speaker 2: Were they medics or not? until finally they landed on
17:37
Speaker 2: what they thought was a possible suspect. During this interview,
17:41
Speaker 2: they had that name at the ready.
17:43
Speaker 3: And so this Israeli soldier, he's talking and saying this
17:47
Speaker 3: guy is, you know, he was one of our best.
17:50
Speaker 3: And that's when I pulled out the name. You know,
17:52
Speaker 3: I said, you know, it's, oh yeah, it's Lior, right?
17:57
Speaker 1: And he's like, what?
17:57
Speaker 3: No, no, it wasn't. No, it wasn't him. You know,
18:01
Speaker 3: it was Alon Skagio. And... There it was. What's his name?
18:21
Speaker 2: What was that moment like for you? Like when you
18:24
Speaker 2: got the name for the first time, what was going
18:27
Speaker 2: through your head?
18:28
Speaker 3: The actual interview itself was one of these magical interviews
18:33
Speaker 3: where it turned out He knew the soldier personally and
18:36
Speaker 3: told us his name. But I definitely, in the back
18:41
Speaker 3: of my head, was wondering if this was a way
18:46
Speaker 3: to put the blame on somebody and say they're dead
18:49
Speaker 3: so they can't be held accountable. So I did wonder
18:53
Speaker 3: until we confirmed it whether it was disinformation, whether there
18:57
Speaker 3: were people that were trying to misbead us, to steer
19:00
Speaker 3: us away from the real person so that they couldn't
19:02
Speaker 3: be held to account.
19:04
Speaker 2: So you got the name Alon Skagio. How did you
19:07
Speaker 2: go about confirming that?
19:08
Speaker 3: So right after we left that interview, we then started
19:11
Speaker 3: scouring the internet to try and figure out if he
19:14
Speaker 3: was in any way connected to Duvdovan. And we did
19:18
Speaker 3: find a very long, detailed obituary about him, which documented
19:24
Speaker 3: that he had joined Duvdovan as an 18-year-old in 2020
19:27
Speaker 3: and had gone through 14 months of training and then
19:34
Speaker 3: deployed to the West Bank three months before Shireen Abu
19:38
Speaker 3: Akleh was killed and then was transferred out of the
19:42
Speaker 3: unit two or three months after Israel completed its investigation
19:47
Speaker 3: into her killing. So... we confirmed he had been in Duvdevon,
19:53
Speaker 3: was serving in the West Bank at the time that
19:56
Speaker 3: she was killed, and transferred out of his unit for
20:00
Speaker 3: unexplained reasons right after the investigation in sort of a
20:05
Speaker 3: promote-up-and-out kind of way. So the— That gave us a
20:10
Speaker 3: lot more confidence that we had the right guy. And
20:13
Speaker 3: then we spoke to another soldier who was there the
20:16
Speaker 3: day that Shireen was killed, who confirmed that it was
20:19
Speaker 3: Alon Skagio.
20:22
Speaker 2: Why do you think that they talked to you in
20:26
Speaker 2: the first place?
20:28
Speaker 3: I lived in Israel for four years. And, you know,
20:32
Speaker 3: one of the best things about Israel as a journalist
20:35
Speaker 3: is that Israelis love to talk. And that's what I
20:38
Speaker 3: was banking on. And we did in the film provide
20:42
Speaker 3: this soldier connected to Duvdovan with anonymity.
20:46
Speaker 2: Do you think he had any other motivations? You know,
20:50
Speaker 2: he's in this elite unit that is, again, like this
20:54
Speaker 2: is a very highly guarded secret. Did you get a
20:57
Speaker 2: sense of what was motivating him other than just wanting
21:00
Speaker 2: to talk?
21:02
Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of members of the Israeli
21:04
Speaker 3: military that are proud of what they're doing in terms
21:09
Speaker 3: of what they see as defending Israel. A lot of
21:13
Speaker 3: these guys are proud and want to talk about it.
21:16
Speaker 3: So I think there's a lot of braggadocio there for sure.
21:20
Speaker 3: This guy was classic Israeli soldier, you know, talking about
21:25
Speaker 3: what they do and how many people he's killed. And
21:29
Speaker 3: he fit the mold for sure. I think, you know,
21:31
Speaker 3: he wanted to talk about what his unit had done
21:34
Speaker 3: and boast about it a bit.
21:37
Speaker 2: And was he proud specifically that they had killed Shireen
21:40
Speaker 2: Abu Akleh?
21:42
Speaker 3: He wasn't proud of that, no. But, you know, his
21:45
Speaker 3: view of this was that it was a mistake and
21:51
Speaker 3: that these things happen in war. It's sort of that
21:56
Speaker 3: classic view that in the fog of war, you're in
22:00
Speaker 3: a battle and sometimes bad things happen. She knew the
22:05
Speaker 3: risks of being there. She was wearing a flak jacket
22:08
Speaker 3: and helmet. She knew it was possible she could get shot.
22:12
Speaker 3: And so he didn't feel any regrets about it. He wasn't,
22:17
Speaker 3: of course, involved in it directly. One of the things
22:21
Speaker 3: that he said that you hear from other Israeli soldiers
22:25
Speaker 3: sometimes is that, look, when you see someone carrying a
22:28
Speaker 3: camera that looks like a weapon, that's justification enough to
22:32
Speaker 3: open fire. And, you know, there have been other incidences
22:36
Speaker 3: where Israeli forces have open fired on cameramen. That happened
22:42
Speaker 3: in October 2023, where an Israeli tank opened fire on
22:46
Speaker 3: a group of journalists across the border in southern Lebanon
22:50
Speaker 3: and killed a Reuters cameraman.
22:52
Speaker 2: And I mean, she wasn't holding a camera.
22:55
Speaker 3: She wasn't. No, we don't know the full story. It
22:58
Speaker 3: is for me and for all of us still an
23:01
Speaker 3: open question. What the soldier was thinking. And the Israeli
23:06
Speaker 3: military is still holding on to his statements. And unless
23:10
Speaker 3: the Israeli military releases it, we won't know what he
23:15
Speaker 3: was thinking. But what this Israeli journalist, Oren Rosenfeld, told
23:20
Speaker 3: us that the soldier had said to him was that
23:23
Speaker 3: all he could see was a helmet. And he fired,
23:28
Speaker 3: presuming that was a militant. Now, there's a lot of
23:31
Speaker 3: problems with with that as a narrative, because typically Palestinian
23:36
Speaker 3: militants don't wear helmets. And then if you're a professional
23:41
Speaker 3: soldier and you're opening fire on someone where all you
23:44
Speaker 3: can see is a helmet, you know, that's not proper procedure.
23:49
Speaker 3: And I had a good number of U.S. officials who
23:53
Speaker 3: were military veterans who basically said that Too many soldiers
24:01
Speaker 3: in the Israeli military would shoot first and ask questions later.
24:05
Speaker 3: And that's essentially what happened with Shireen.
24:12
Speaker 2: Dayan and his team found out who killed Shireen. Coming up,
24:18
Speaker 2: what impact does it have? That's in a minute. So
24:30
Speaker 2: you told Shireen's family once you confirmed that you had
24:35
Speaker 2: found out who had killed Shireen, what was their reaction?
24:39
Speaker 3: We told them in a kind of a Zoom call
24:41
Speaker 3: because they were all over the world. You know, they've
24:43
Speaker 3: been through so much. I think they're kind of steeled
24:46
Speaker 3: a bit to some of these revelations. There wasn't any
24:50
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, shock to it. Shireen's niece, Lena Abouakle,
24:56
Speaker 3: who's been, you know, one of the the most outspoken
24:59
Speaker 3: in public figures on behalf of the family, has been saying,
25:03
Speaker 3: you know, it's not about the soldier himself. It's about
25:06
Speaker 3: the system that led to him firing that shot. And
25:13
Speaker 3: she's still looking for broader accountability. You know, one of
25:17
Speaker 3: the things that we did find out that this soldier
25:19
Speaker 3: told us was that members of Alon Skagio's unit were
25:23
Speaker 3: so upset that he had been sort of painted by
25:27
Speaker 3: killing Shireen, that they started using Shireen Abakle's photograph for
25:32
Speaker 3: target practice after he died. Shireen's family, they were obviously
25:39
Speaker 3: shocked by that.
25:42
Speaker 2: What was your reaction when you learned that piece of information?
25:46
Speaker 3: Also shock for these soldiers to view her as the enemy.
25:53
Speaker 3: It speaks to a mentality that I wouldn't say it's
25:57
Speaker 3: throughout the entire Israeli military, but it speaks to a
26:00
Speaker 3: mentality certainly of these soldiers where they view journalists as
26:04
Speaker 3: the enemy. And, you know, in this case, a Palestinian-American journalist.
26:08
Speaker 3: They've dehumanized her to the point that she's, you know,
26:11
Speaker 3: becomes the enemy.
26:13
Speaker 2: When we first spoke, you mentioned that you had reached
26:18
Speaker 2: out to Alon Skagio's mother the morning of the film premiere.
26:23
Speaker 2: And that she didn't know that her son had killed
26:25
Speaker 2: Shireen Abu Akleh. Can you tell me about what her
26:28
Speaker 2: response was like?
26:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was surprising. And when I reached out, I
26:35
Speaker 3: thought she would know. But I called her and she
26:39
Speaker 3: didn't know. And, of course, she was surprised, you know,
26:43
Speaker 3: wondering who told me this. And she said to me, well,
26:47
Speaker 3: she was between militants. You know, she was standing between militants. Hmm. And,
26:52
Speaker 3: you know, again, people have a version of events in
26:55
Speaker 3: their head that they're just going to stick with. And
26:57
Speaker 3: I said to her, the Israeli military's own investigation showed
27:00
Speaker 3: that she was not near militants. And she just said, no, no, no, no.
27:05
Speaker 3: She was between militants. She was. Of course, I'm not
27:09
Speaker 3: going to argue with her in this situation. But, you know,
27:13
Speaker 3: she wondered to know why we were doing this and
27:16
Speaker 3: why we were bringing this up now. And, you know,
27:19
Speaker 3: of course, she didn't. have any reason to believe me.
27:22
Speaker 3: I was a voice calling out of the blue. And
27:25
Speaker 3: then I told the Israeli military that I had spoken
27:28
Speaker 3: with her and the Israeli military reached out to her.
27:32
Speaker 3: And then, you know, they reached out back to me
27:34
Speaker 3: and said that she was asking us not to use
27:38
Speaker 3: his name in the film, or at least not use
27:41
Speaker 3: his last name. I said, well, you know, look, if
27:43
Speaker 3: we've got the name wrong, we'll definitely consider that. And
27:48
Speaker 3: the Israeli military spokesperson I spoke to said, well, that's
27:51
Speaker 3: not why I'm calling. You know, we're just passing on
27:55
Speaker 3: this request from the family. And the spokesperson said to me,
27:58
Speaker 3: I told her that you probably weren't likely to do it,
28:01
Speaker 3: but that I would ask.
28:03
Speaker 2: This is exactly what your investigation was trying to seek out, right?
28:06
Speaker 2: Was you were trying to find a name.
28:08
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
28:11
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you can talk a bit about the
28:15
Speaker 2: independent journalists who were actually at the scene when Shireen
28:20
Speaker 2: was killed. They were witnesses and reported on what happened
28:25
Speaker 2: and their accounts were really not taken into consideration at all.
28:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. That's always, to me, one of the most
28:35
Speaker 3: disheartening things as well is that you had a whole
28:39
Speaker 3: group of journalists that were there. They were staging at
28:43
Speaker 3: a particular area A bit distant from this Israeli military
28:48
Speaker 3: convoy and this operation that was going on for their safety.
28:52
Speaker 3: And their eyewitness accounts were that the Israeli soldiers intentionally
29:01
Speaker 3: shot and killed Shireen. And that proved to be exactly true. Right.
29:10
Speaker 2: That's exactly what you found.
29:11
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And I went back to look at some
29:13
Speaker 3: of the stories, and a lot of the stories then said,
29:15
Speaker 3: the Palestinian health ministry says this, or Al Jazeera says this.
29:21
Speaker 3: And the eyewitness accounts of these journalists were discredited, in
29:27
Speaker 3: my mind, because they were Palestinian, and they weren't seen
29:31
Speaker 3: as credible journalists. And to step back, on the Israeli side,
29:39
Speaker 3: most Israelis serve in the Israeli military. And oftentimes you
29:46
Speaker 3: have former Israeli intelligence officials that go on to be journalists.
29:53
Speaker 3: And it's not often that their credibility is questioned. or
29:58
Speaker 3: their objectivity is questioned because they actively served in the
30:04
Speaker 3: Israeli military, potentially even in key intelligence roles. I do
30:10
Speaker 3: see that double standard play out quite a bit. Yeah.
30:15
Speaker 2: What do you want viewers to take away from seeing
30:19
Speaker 2: your documentary and to understand after watching your film?
30:26
Speaker 3: I definitely hope that people take away a bit more
30:31
Speaker 3: understanding about who Shireen was and how important a figure
30:34
Speaker 3: she was in the Middle East. I would love people
30:39
Speaker 3: to reflect on the risks Palestinian journalists face today. You know,
30:47
Speaker 3: the main point here is that they're putting their lives
30:49
Speaker 3: on the line to try and tell this story fairly
30:52
Speaker 3: and accurately. The day the film premiered, two more journalists
30:56
Speaker 3: in Gaza were killed. Right. I would love there to
31:00
Speaker 3: be some reflection on the part of the Israeli military
31:04
Speaker 3: about what they're doing now in response to October 7th.
31:11
Speaker 3: They have an opportunity to correct that every day. And
31:15
Speaker 3: I would love for people to be able to clearly
31:21
Speaker 3: explain what happened to Shireen that day without there being
31:24
Speaker 3: any sort of obfuscation or or hemming and hawing.
31:47
Speaker 1: That was our producer, Sophie Casis. You can watch Who
31:50
Speaker 1: Killed Shireen at zateo.com. In addition to Dayan, the film
31:54
Speaker 1: was also reported by Fatima Abdul-Karim and Connor Powell. The
31:59
Speaker 1: Israeli military declined to comment for the documentary before its release.
32:04
Speaker 1: But since it came out, military officials have apparently changed
32:06
Speaker 1: their minds about that. And they've changed their story about
32:10
Speaker 1: what happened to Shireen Abu-Akhle. Last week, they put out
32:13
Speaker 1: a statement claiming, quote, there is no definitive determination regarding
32:17
Speaker 1: the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting that
32:21
Speaker 1: caused the journalist's death. That is at odds with what
32:25
Speaker 1: military officials said in a recording that Dayan and his
32:28
Speaker 1: colleagues got a hold of from about four months after
32:31
Speaker 1: Shareen's death, in which a military spokesperson says that a
32:35
Speaker 1: top Israeli general had met with the soldier who shot Shareen.
32:39
Speaker 1: Those things do not square. Something else that happened around
32:44
Speaker 1: the release of the film this month, a week before
32:46
Speaker 1: its premiere, the Israeli military detained a Palestinian journalist named
32:50
Speaker 1: Ali Samoudi, who had been with Shareen when she was killed,
32:55
Speaker 1: and was also shot himself that day. Ali is interviewed
32:59
Speaker 1: in the documentary, talking about what happened and criticizing Israel
33:03
Speaker 1: and the U.S. Now Israeli forces have imprisoned him without charge.
33:08
Speaker 1: We'll share more about what's happening to Ali in our newsletter,
33:10
Speaker 1: kcrw.com slash question everything. As for the U.S. government, Dayan
33:16
Speaker 1: says there's been no response to his team's reporting from
33:19
Speaker 1: the current administration or from officials who worked under Joe Biden.
33:25
Speaker 1: Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and
33:28
Speaker 1: on Spotify. This episode was edited by Robin Simeon and
33:31
Speaker 1: Jen Kinney. Our show is executive produced by Robin Simeon
33:34
Speaker 1: and me. Producer Zach St. Louis and associate producer Emily
33:38
Speaker 1: Maltaire also make the podcast. Annika Robbins fact-checked this episode.
33:42
Speaker 1: Sound design was by Brendan Baker. Our music is by
33:45
Speaker 1: Matt McGinley. Special thanks to Zateo and to our lawyers,
33:48
Speaker 1: Cassandra Cito and Matt Klein at O'Melveny. Our partners at KCRW,
33:52
Speaker 1: Include Arnie Seipel, Tejal Jumeirah, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow.
33:57
Speaker 1: See you next time.