That fall, the Second Intifada had erupted, followed less than two years later by Israel’s large-scale invasion of major West Bank towns and cities, especially in Jenin, where Abu Akleh remained camped out for the entire duration of the invasion. Her extensive reporting during that time made her a trusted and ubiquitous source of news about events that few other media outlets paid attention to.

In an online interview given to Al Jazeera before her death, Abu Akleh explained:

From the siege of spring 2002, she went on to cover myriad stories, large and small, including the Gaza wars of 2008–9, 2012, 2014, and 2021, as well as regional conflagrations such as the 2006 Lebanon War. Her colleagues were not entirely joking when they called her “Palestine’s war correspondent.”

Throughout her more than 25 years of reporting live on air from every corner of Palestine that Al Jazeera was allowed to cover, she inspired a generation of young Palestinian women to follow her into journalism. Some later became colleagues.

Many Palestinians shared that they genuinely felt like it was a member of their own family who was shot dead. Her signature signoff, “Ana Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera, Ramallah [or whatever location she was in], Filastin,” was familiar to all. Her distinctive voice and in-depth, contextualized coverage of events carried an authority that the public trusted. Abu Akleh and her colleague Guevara Budeiri were the most recognized female Palestinian reporters who rose to fame after 1997.

Calling her a “media icon,” journalism student Azhar Khalaf, 22, expressed the national loss in an interview with Al Jazeera: “She was in every home, she felt the pain of every Palestinian and conveyed their pain. She was the voice of truth and justice.”16

Dena Takruri, a presenter and producer for AJ+, said:

Ayman Mohyeldin, formerly of Al Jazeera and now at MSNBC, paid tribute to Abu Akleh as well:

Dalia Hatuqa, formerly of Al Jazeera and now a freelance journalist, wrote this tribute to a colleague and friend:

Abu Akleh’s audience spanned the entire Arab world. Political economist and policy analyst Tawfiq Haddad described the profound sense of loss experienced by Arab viewers at the news of her killing:

Mohammad Shtayyeh, the Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, called Abu Akleh “a national figure” and “a star.” He told Al Jazeera that Abu Akleh was “not only a correspondent, but she lived the cases and was reporting about every single detail of the Palestinian daily life.”21

For Palestinians, Abu Akleh was bint al-Quds—the daughter of Jerusalem—who spent much of her life in the beloved city. Born in 1971, she studied at the Rosary Sisters’ School in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem. She earned a degree in media and journalism from Yarmouk University in Jordan, and spent some time in the US, but she returned to her city and made her career in Palestine.

Many Palestinians had not been aware that Abu Akleh was also an American citizen or that she came from a Christian background; she was a Melkite Catholic. They knew her and admired her all those years for the person that she was: a longtime professional journalist with high integrity. All those who knew Abu Akleh would describe her, among other things, as a compassionate, kind person with a big heart.

Abu Akleh was a revered figure, and a role model for many. With that said, in the eyes of most Palestinians, she represented “the girl next door.” Despite her successful career, she remained close to the ground and was accessible to all those who needed her. “Her roots were so deep-rooted in Jerusalem, and her family as well. I have seen Shireen Abu Akleh nearly everywhere—in condolences houses, in celebrations, in demonstrations and in sit-ins,”22 said Shtayyeh, the prime minister.

As a Jerusalem resident, Abu Akleh was entitled to be buried in Jerusalem, alongside her parents. (Israel rejected appeals to bury Yasir Arafat in Jerusalem in 2004, just one of many other Palestinians whose wishes to be buried in their birthplace were refused.)

From Jenin, which is 75 km north of Jerusalem, Abu Akleh’s body was taken to Nablus for an autopsy and then brought to Ramallah.

All along the way—in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah—the public turned out to accompany and embrace her and she had, in effect, one of the longest funeral processions in Palestinian.

Because Israel has severed Jerusalem from its Palestinian hinterland (see Jerusalem: A Closed City) and outlawed any activity on the part of the PA within the Jerusalem municipal borders, the PA held its own official funeral in Ramallah to give Abu Akleh the honor and respect she deserved. She was given a full state memorial service and posthumously awarded the nation’s highest honor, the Star of Jerusalem medal, one of the highest honors given to Palestinian, Arab, and foreign personalities who have served Palestine and the Palestinian people in a significant way.

Thousands were in attendance at the PA’s presidential compound in Ramallah.

Once Abu Akleh’s body reached Qalandiya checkpoint, which controls Palestinian access into Jerusalem, the trouble began.

The Israeli authorities stopped the funeral procession and insisted on removing the blood-splattered Palestinian flag that covered Abu Akleh’s coffin. Israel does not allow the Palestinian flag to be flown inside the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem (even though doing so is not technically illegal). In Israel’s eyes, the Palestinian flag and Palestinian national organizations equate to a national Palestinian claim over Jerusalem, a claim that Israel ferociously rejects.

The funeral of Abu Akleh—a national Palestinian symbol who was quickly becoming a legend—which was covered live for hours and watched by a grieving nation, provided graphic evidence of Israel’s determination to maintain exclusive control over the city at any cost, oblivious (or perhaps indifferent) to the public relations disaster it was creating for itself.

Abu Akleh’s body was taken to the morgue at St. Joseph Hospital in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem for the night, and her family retired to their home in Beit Hanina.

But the Israeli police showed up at the house, insisting that Palestinian flags be removed and that nationalist chants cease. They later summoned Abu Akleh’s grieving brother, Anton, who had only just flown in from Somalia where he was on a work trip with the United Nations, to the local police station to discuss the funeral. He later relayed: “We informed them of the arrangements we had made, the roads we planned on walking—from Jaffa Gate to Mount Zion. They demanded that we not raise the Palestinian flag or chant slogans.”23

The next morning, May 13, hundreds of mourners began gathering at the hospital morgue and in its courtyard to escort the coffin to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin in the Old City, where the service would be performed. The mourners said a Muslim prayer and a Christian prayer.

Around one o’clock, when the pallbearers set out on foot from the morgue doorway to the hospital courtyard carrying the coffin, they were charged by about 150 Israeli police outfitted in riot gear; some rode on horseback. The police charged and brutally beat the mourners, including the pallbearers, who struggled to not let the coffin fall to the ground.24

Their aim appeared to be to force the funeral to proceed in a hearse. A walking procession (traditionally done for funerals of this size and significance) would be more moving, evocative, and slow; the route would take mourners right through the heart of Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood that has been targeted for forced expulsions by settlers, and through the heart of East Jerusalem. The other aim was to prevent the display of any Palestinian flags, which police forcefully seized from mourners’ hands, at the hospital and throughout the day across the funeral procession. The Israeli police were determined to avoid a major show of Palestinian national presence in Jerusalem.

Armed with batons, tear gas, stun grenades, sponge-tipped bullets, and riot gear, the police brutally beat the nascent funeral procession right back into the hospital doorway. However, the violence did not end there. When the pallbearers were compelled to place the casket into the hearse, the police smashed a window of the vehicle and ripped out a Palestinian flag that was displayed over the casket. They also forced open the rear hatchback door and pulled out at least one man, dragging him out of the vehicle, possibly in order to arrest him. A pallbearer who had been beaten by police was arrested a few days later and interrogated about his participation in the funeral.25

After the hearse had departed, the police detained the mourners in the hospital courtyard, delaying their departure for the church for one hour.

Anton, the only sibling of Shireen, later berated the Israeli police for “extreme, vicious and brutal force” outside the hospital. “Everyone who was there was there to mourn Shireen. What’s this mob they’re talking about? And even if there were one or two, how many police do you need to deal with it? The whole story here is illogical and untrue,” he said.26

He categorically denied Israeli claims that a “mob” had seized the coffin without permission.

“Whatever we had agreed upon, the way in which the police handled the situation as soon as the casket was taken out of the hospital was shameful. They used brutal, extreme force and even beat the pallbearers. It was simply unacceptable,” said Anton.

“They should have given us the time to conduct her funeral without their interference.”27

He also noted: “They could have easily blocked the road if they didn't want to see the funeral leave the hospital but the attack was intentional and brutal.”

The attacks on mourners, seen in real time by a global audience, triggered shock and revulsion.28 For example, Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, tweeted: “The inhumanity in these images is horrifying. Even in death, Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqla was denied dignity and compassion.”29

Anton debunked the police claim that it was acting at the behest of the family. He said, “there was no agreement between us and the police . . . We gave them the number of participants and the path of the funeral and this is what happened.

“We told the police that this is a national funeral and not a funeral for the Abu Akleh family, but a funeral for all the Palestinian people.”30

All that notwithstanding, Abu Akleh’s funeral was historic in every way. In the end, it was a national funeral. With more than 10,000 people in attendance,31 it was the largest funeral in Jerusalem since that of Faisal Husseini in 2001.

Had all routes to the city been left open, the crowds would undoubtedly have been many times that size. Many of the gates to the Old City were blocked by police. “Because the police had put restrictions on the roads to prevent people from participating in the funeral, I was even late to the church,”32 Anton later said.

Beyond the city itself, millions of Palestinians were unable to enter the city because Israel does not allow to Palestinians with Palestinian Authority IDs to enter Jerusalem unless they have entry permits, which must be obtained from the COGAT. The process takes time and has no guaranteed outcome (see Jerusalem: A Closed City).

Despite all the restrictions, the funeral service was held at the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate (Church of the Annunciation) in the Old City of Jerusalem, just inside the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. Abu Akleh’s funeral was notable for the diversity of attendees—old, young, Christian, Muslim, religious, secular, urban, rural; on this day, everyone set aside any differences and honored Abu Akleh as one united people. Journalists and diplomats representing media and countries worldwide were also present, as were countless others.

After the funeral in the church, thousands of mourners walked in sadness, anger, and unanimous solidarity from the church toward the Mount Zion Christian cemetery, along the walls of the Old City. Bells of all the 13 churches in East Jerusalem movingly rang simultaneously, an unprecedented event signaling unity. Mourners chanted Christian and Muslim religious chants in harmony as they marched side by side: “Al-Masih qam”; “Allahu akbar.”

The Israeli police continued their aggressive efforts to confiscate Palestinian flags even as the procession—a virtual flood of people—wound toward the cemetery. But almost each time they managed to seize a flag, another was raised by someone else.

After a tumultuous final journey, Abu Akleh was buried next to her parents at the Mount Zion Christian cemetery. Finally at rest, her memory, her legacy, and her spirit live on forever.