Documentary claims to have identified IDF soldier who killed Al-Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh

A new documentary claims to identify the Israeli soldier who opened fire and killed veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank city of Jenin in 2022.

According to Zeteo News, a far-left outlet founded by Israel critic Mehdi Hasan, the soldier who fired the deadly shots was Cpt. Alon Sacgiu, then a 20-year-old sharpshooter in the Duvdevan commando unit.

An IDF investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh determined that one soldier, who “with very high likelihood” shot the 51-year-old Palestinian-American journalist who was wearing a vest marked “Press” and a helmet, did so by mistake after “misidentifying her.” The IDF had initially blamed Palestinian gunmen for the shooting.

The documentary claims that Sacgiu was named by another soldier serving in the Duvdevan squad at the time of the incident.

Sacgiu, while serving as a commander of a sniper team in the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit, was killed by a roadside bomb in Jenin in June 2024.

The IDF has not named the soldier involved in the incident, but military officials confirm to The New York Times that the documentary’s conclusions are correct.

In response to a query by the NYT, the military says it made “no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting.” It also passed the newspaper a message from Sacgiu’s family requesting that journalists avoid publishing his name.