Nearly three years have passed since the journalist was brutally killed without Israel being held to account for the crime.

Israeli soldier Alon Sacgiu, who was killed during a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in June 2024, has been identified as the soldier responsible for the 2022 killing of renowned Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, according to a new investigation by Zeteo published on Thursday.

The investigation, titled “Who Killed Shireen?”, publicly names the soldier for the first time, following years of Israeli authorities withholding his identity after the fatal shooting of the Palestinian-American journalist.

“We set out on this journey to find out who killed Shireen. We did what the U.S. government failed to do. Israeli soldiers told us that Alon Sacgiu killed Shireen and the Israeli government covered it up,” Dion Nissenbaum, the investigation’s lead journalist, said in the documentary.

According to the investigation, Sacgiu deliberately aimed at Shireen Abu Akleh as she reported on an Israeli military raid in Jenin on 11 May 2022, despite her wearing a clearly marked press vest and helmet.

Zeteo’s 40-minute documentary features interviews with former U.S. and Israeli officials, senior military personnel, and journalists who knew Abu Akleh, offering a detailed account of the events surrounding her killing.

Citing its sources, Zeteo said the soldier’s identity was “a closely guarded secret up until now, as Israel had refused to divulge his name even to top American officials”. It also further exposed the former U.S. Joe Biden administration that shielded its ally, Israel, from being held to account. 

“The Biden administration ‘failed’ Shireen in order to maintain its relationship with the Israeli government,” Zeteo said.

The film also reveals that Sacgiu and fellow members of the Israeli occupation forces used Shireen Abu Akleh’s image for target practice– an act reportedly driven by anger over the backlash following her killing.

Israel’s claims debunked

Abu Akleh was widely known as “the voice of Palestinians” for her courage in reporting from Palestine while facing repeated obstacles by Israeli forces on the ground. 

Her killing sent shockwaves globally and triggered one of the biggest funerals in Palestine’s history. Israeli occupation forces had also violently attacked and arrested pallbearers who carried Abu Akleh’s body during her funeral.

The Qatar-based network had condemned the killing of its journalist, saying Abu Akleh was assassinated “in cold blood”.

Qatar had also strongly condemned the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and the attacks on her funeral procession. On 23 May 2022, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned the actions, stating that Abu Akleh had been “robbed of a dignified burial.”

“[The] Palestinian-American journalist was killed two weeks ago in Palestine, and then robbed of a dignified burial. Shireen was covering the suffering of the Palestinian people for decades, and our hearts are broken,” the Amir told the World Economic Forum in Davos at the time.

The latest investigation has dealt another blow to Israel, which has long concealed its role in the murder of Abu Akleh.  

Israel had first claimed that Abu Akleh was attacked by armed Palestinians rather than murdered by occupation forces.

Those claims were quickly refuted by Al Jazeera’s news verification and monitoring unit, which showed that the alleged Palestinian fighters were not near Abu Akleh.

The U.S. repeatedly failed to hold its ally accountable for the killing of Abu Akleh, despite her being an American citizen. Multiple investigations by rights groups and Western media outlets, including a reconstruction by the Associtated Press and CNN, collectively revealed that Israel was the sole perpetrator of the attack on the journalists carrying out her duty.

Israel’s killing of Abu Akleh is part of a broader pattern of targeting journalists, particularly those from Al Jazeera, a tactic that has escalated during the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 213 journalists in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest figures revealed by local authorities on Wednesday. 

The journalists are among more than 61,700 people in the Gaza Strip killed during the genocide, according to a revised figure by the local health ministry. 

However, the figure is believed to be significantly higher with thousands trapped under the rubble and now presumed to be dead.