Autopsy reveals Al Jazeera journalist had skull fractures

RAMALLAH, Palestine

Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh suffered a cerebral laceration and skull fractures, a Palestinian pathologist said on Wednesday.

Abu Akleh, 51, was shot dead while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin Wednesday morning. Another journalist Ali Al-Samoudi was shot in the back, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Doha-based Al Jazeera channel has accused Israeli forces of deliberately assassinating its reporter “in cold blood.”

Rayyan al-Ali, the director of the Forensic Medicine Institute at the An-Najah University in Nablus city, said the journalist was fatally shot in the head.

“The bullet has caused a complete laceration of the brain and skull bones,” he told a press conference after conducting an autopsy on Abu Akleh’s body.

He said the reporter was shot at “a range of more than one meter.”

Al-Ali added that the type of bullet used in the shooting will be examined by a crime lab to determine the weapon used in the killing.

Abu Akleh was born in Jerusalem in 1971 and earned a BA in journalism and media from Yarmouk University in Jordan. She also holds US citizenship.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar