Palestinian journalist and student Shatha al-Sabbagh, 20, was killed on Sunday by Palestinian gunmen — and the world is ignoring her death, despite raising an outcry in 2022 when a Palestinian journalist was killed by Israel.
In May 2022, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while reporting on clashes between Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and Palestinian terrorists during an attempt by Israel to arrest a Palestinian terror suspect.
Unlike other Al Jazeera journalists who have been killed recently, Abu Akleh was not known to have ties to terror.
Abu Akleh’s story became an international sensation; foreign correspondents at the White House and the State Department brought her up often in press conferences. Yet al-Sabbagh’s death has been met with relative silence.
The Times of Israel reported:
Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalism student and independent reporter in her early 20s, was killed by a bullet to the head, which her family said was fired by a security forces sniper while there was no fighting going on in the vicinity.
The security forces of the PA [Palestinian Authority], however, blamed local Palestinian terror group fighters, saying she was shot during nighttime clashes at the camp [in Jenin].
…
She was killed by “a sniper’s bullet from the security forces of the Palestinian Authority in a heinous crime,” the family said in a statement released on Sunday. “As the family of martyr Shatha al-Sabbagh, we hold the Palestinian Authority and its security forces directly responsible for this crime.”
The contrast between how the world has reacted to al-Sabbagh’s death and Abu Akleh’s death is evident in the fact that even President Joe Biden mentioned Abu Akleh in prepared remarks in 2022. Though Abu Akleh also held U.S. citizenship, the key difference appears to be tthat Palestinians — of whatever faction — were responsible this time.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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