LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Three years ago, almost to the day, a renowned Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was shot and killed as she covered an Israeli raid in the Palestinian city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Shouting in Arabic).
FADEL: She was a reporter for Al Jazeera, and she wore a clearly marked blue flak jacket with the word, press, when she was killed. At the time, President Biden vowed to get to the bottom of her killing.
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JOE BIDEN: The United States will continue to insist on a full and transparent accounting of her death and will continue to stand up for media freedom everywhere in the world.
FADEL: To date, no one has been held accountable. A review by the U.S. government determined it was likely an Israeli soldier who killed Abu Akleh. It also concluded it was a tragic mistake. But a group of journalists reveal in a new documentary called "Who Killed Shireen?" that the initial findings of that inquiry told a very different story. That documentary from the media company Zeteo is out now. I spoke with Dion Nissenbaum, one of the journalists involved and an executive producer of the film.
DION NISSENBAUM: We were able to find a key U.S. official to talk to us, who told us that U.S. personnel went to the scene in the West Bank city of Jenin, where Shireen was killed, to try and figure out what happened. And their initial assessment was that the Israeli soldier intentionally targeted Shireen.
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UNIDENTIFIED US OFFICIAL: It was an indication that it was an intentional killing of, at this point in time, Shireen Abu Akleh. They would have absolutely known that it was a media person - or not combatants, at a minimum - that that person shot and killed.
FADEL: In the film, as you can hear, the former U.S. official's voice is distorted. NPR's Daniel Estrin also spoke to that former U.S. official, who also requested anonymity from us to discuss sensitive internal government discussions. The official said the U.S. initially found that the killing was intentional - that the soldier would have known he was shooting at a journalist. But he said those findings were changed, and ultimately, the U.S. concluded there was no reason to believe the shooting was intentional. Again, Dion Nissenbaum.
NISSENBAUM: That initial assessment was essentially overruled by the Biden administration, and they came out and said explicitly that it was unintentional.
FADEL: So what did you make of that when you heard that?
NISSENBAUM: For me, the - one of the main reasons I wanted to do this documentary is that so many people just don't understand what happened to Shireen that day. And, you know, the Israeli investigation itself concluded that it was very likely that an Israeli soldier falsely identified Shireen as a militant and intentionally killed her. That really is not in debate. There were no militants near her that they were aiming for. She was not caught in any crossfire. The Israeli investigation itself concluded that the soldier intentionally shot her.
FADEL: Did you find Shireen's killer?
NISSENBAUM: We did find Shireen's killer. He was a 20-year-old soldier who was on his first combat deployment in the West Bank, and we were able to track him down. And he actually was himself killed in Jenin last summer, so he was killed in the city where he killed Shireen.
FADEL: And how did you confirm that this was actually the person that fired the bullet? Did you reach out to the IDF, to his family?
NISSENBAUM: We have reached out. We confirmed it with Israeli soldiers that knew him and served with him. And we have spoken with the Israeli military about this at length. The Israeli military is declining to comment on this. I can tell you with, you know, high confidence we have identified the shooter.
FADEL: You know, there are - and you note this in your documentary, too, that the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented upward of 176 journalists and media workers. And they determine and allege at least 17 of those journalists and two media workers were directly targeted by Israeli forces. CPJ's classifying them as murders. Why focus on this killing?
NISSENBAUM: Well, her killing was, in some ways, you know, the beginning of a trajectory for the Israeli military. Before Shireen, Israel was never on the list of most dangerous countries for journalists. And now, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel is considered the most dangerous country for journalists because of what's happening in Gaza. And two more Gaza journalists were killed in new strikes in Gaza. And so you've - just see a real shift in the way the Israeli military looks at journalists, and it's becoming ever more dangerous for journalists to work there.
FADEL: And since her killing, six other Americans have been killed in Israeli fire.
NISSENBAUM: That's right. As we note in the documentary, there are folks like Senator Chris Van Hollen who do believe that the Biden administration's failure to hold Israel to account and get them to change the way they operate did lead to the death of other Americans in the West Bank.
FADEL: What do you hope this film will achieve?
NISSENBAUM: I'm hoping that it will lead to some reflections from the Israeli military about the way that they operate in the West Bank around civilians and journalists. I'm hoping that the U.S. government will reflect on its own responsibility in trying to seek some justice for an American citizen who was killed by the Israeli military. I hope there's some reflection from U.S. officials about ways that they can stand up for Americans in that situation.
FADEL: Dion Nissenbaum is one of the executive producers of the documentary "Who Killed Shireen?" It's out now on Zeteo. Thank you so much, Dion.
NISSENBAUM: Thank you, Leila.
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FADEL: The Israeli military told NPR it does not deliberately target journalists. It also says some of the journalists and media workers documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists were Hamas operatives and therefore lawful targets. We asked the Israeli military for a response to the findings in this documentary. They said, in a statement, Zeteo has decided to publish the name of the soldier who fell during an operational activity, despite the family's request not to publish the name, and even though they were told there is no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting that caused the journalist's death.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEA POWE'S "NO MAN IS AN ARCHIPELAGO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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