OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The
Catholic archbishop in
Jerusalem on Monday strongly criticized Israel's attack last
week of a Christian hospital ahead of the funeral of slain Al-Jazeera reporter
Shireen Abu Akleh.
اضافة اعلان
The veteran journalist was shot dead by
Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank town of Jenin.
Anger over her death was compounded Friday
when baton-wielding Israeli occupation forces in occupied East Jerusalem beat
pallbearers carrying Abu Akleh's coffin.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,
Pierbattista Pizzaballa, on Monday condemned "Israel's police invasion and
disproportionate use of force" at St Joseph's hospital, where her body was
being held.
At a press conference at the hospital, he
criticized Israeli occupation forces for "attacking mourners, striking
them with batons, using smoke grenades (and) shooting rubber
bullets".
Police had stormed the hospital,
"disrespecting the church, disrespecting the health institute (and)
disrespecting the memory of the deceased," said Pizzaballa, speaking on
behalf of the bishops of the Holy Land.
The hospital is owned by the Sisters of St
Joseph of the Apparition, a French-founded congregation that has been present
in historic Palestine and Israel for nearly 200 years.
According to Al-Jazeera,
St Joseph Hospital
also released security camera footage that showed Israeli forces storming the
building where Abu Akleh’s body had been lying, and said 13 people were injured
as a result of the raid.
Israeli police have offered a series of
explanations for the unrest on the day of her funeral. In a police video,
an officer is seen telling the crowd that the procession would not commence
until the crowd stopped "nationalistic", or Palestinian, chants.
Israeli forces frequently crack down on
individuals publicly expressing their Palestinian identity, including by waving
the flag.
They have also said they were “compelled to
act” to uphold the plans for the funeral agreed with the family, which were
being disrupted by a "mob" made up of some "300
rioters".
The Abu Akleh family has categorically
rejected the police version of events.
The late journalist's brother Anton Abu
Akleh said that police had called him the night before the funeral to insist
there should not be "any Palestinian flags, no slogans and no
chanting".
When the family arrived at the hospital on
Friday, police already seemed poised for unrest, he explained, saying "the
roads were blocked, (officers) were fully armored, ready for a riot."
He urged accountability over the
"savage" Israeli action.
Lina Abu Akleh, the late journalist's niece,
said that a police officer "threatened to beat me if I didn't move out of
the way", and that she hid inside the hospital once the police started
throwing stun grenades at mourners.
St Joseph's director Jamil Kousa told AFP
that he had spoken to police outside the hospital on Friday and pleaded that
the procession be allowed to go ahead "peacefully", but that officers
explained it would be blocked if mourners shouted Palestinian national
"chants."
Father Luc Pareydt, advisor for religious
affairs at the French Consulate in Jerusalem who was also at the press
conference, told AFP he was struck by how "calm and dignified" the
mourners were before the police raid.
A spontaneous joint prayer between
Palestinian Muslims and Christians broke out in the hospital yard before the
raid, he said.
The Israeli response, he insisted, "was
absolutely gratuitous and completely unjustified in terms of
proportionality."
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