Israeli police attack mourners at Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral
Israeli police surrounded the mourners and used stun grenades and batons to assault the pall bearers carrying the casket of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Family, friends and colleagues of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh attended her funeral in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Israeli forces have stormed a Jerusalem hospital grounds as the coffin containing the body of a slain journalist emerged ahead of the burial.
TV images on Friday showed Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh's coffin nearly falling to the ground as police grabbed Palestinian flags from the crowd around the procession outside Saint Joseph's hospital in the occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli police said they acted against people "disrupting the public order."
Israel forbids public displays of Palestinian flags and often storms individuals who hoist them at rallies or protests in the city.
The #IsraeliOccupation threatens to disrupt #ShireenAbuAkleh’s funeral should the mourners display Palestinian flags & posters or chant nationalistic slogans. The insecurity of the oppressor is exposed: fear of our symbols, fear of our grief & anger, fear of our very existence!
— Hanan Ashrawi (@DrHananAshrawi) May 13, 2022
A senior Palestinian figure, Hanan Ashrawi, tweeted that "savage #Israeli 'special forces' viciously attack the funeral procession bearing the coffin" of Abu Akleh as it left St. Joseph's.
"The inhumanity (of) Israel is on full display", said the former top Palestine Liberation Organization official.
In a statement, police said they had held dialogue with Abu Akleh's family ahead of time in order to "enable a respectable funeral."
Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is to receive a state funeral in occupied West Bank pic.twitter.com/xGC1ohHxNp
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) May 13, 2022
Full state memorial
"Unfortunately under the auspices of the funeral and taking cynical advantage of it, hundreds of people began disrupting the public order before it even began," police said.
"As the coffin was about to exit the hospital, stones began to be thrown at officers from the hospital's plaza, and the officers were forced to use riot dispersal means," the statement added.
Police also released a video in which an officer, outside the hospital grounds, is addressing the crowd over a loudspeaker.
"If you don't stop these chants and (Palestinians) nationalistic songs we will have to disperse you using force and we won't let the funeral take place," the officer says in the video.
Abu Akleh's coffin left the hospital grounds by vehicle and had arrived at a Jerusalem church for her funeral.
She was given what was described as a full state memorial on Thursday at Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's compound in Ramallah before being transferred to Jerusalem.
She was killed on Wednesday while covering an Israeli raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
READ MORE: Palestinians mourn slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
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