This morning, many of us woke up to the news that veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh had been killed in the occupied West Bank. The fifty-one-year-old was covering an Israeli army raid on the Jenin refugee camp when she was shot in the face by an Israeli sniper, despite wearing a press vest. Firsthand accounts say that even as she fell after being hit, the shooting continued, preventing other journalists from reaching her.

The Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, with a characteristic lack of contrition, claimed that Israel’s information suggests armed Palestinians were responsible for the journalist’s death. But Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem bureau chief Walid al-Omari said Abu Akleh was deliberately killed and that there were no confrontations with gunmen at the location of the shooting. Speaking to the Guardian, Shatha Hanaysha, a journalist for Quds News Network who witnessed the incident, recalled, “We were a group wearing press gear, and Shireen was even wearing the helmet. So, it is obvious that the one who shot her meant to hit an exposed part of her body.”

Hanaysha called it an “assassination.” This was echoed by an official statement released by Al Jazeera condemning the “blatant murder” of Abu Akleh, “assassinated in cold blood,” before calling on the international community to hold Israeli forces responsible.