Nasser Abu Bakr, the head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, the former president of the International Federation of Journalists current member of its administrative board, Jimmy Boumleiha, and Anton Abu Akleh, brother of the slain Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, today submitted a new legal complaint to the office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Dutch city of The Hague on the Israeli army killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.

Abu Akleh was killed on May 11 while covering an Israeli army raid of the northern West Bank city of Jenin and the injury of journalist Ali Samoudi.

A previous communication was submitted in April to the ICC to open an investigation into the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists, including Ahmad Abu Hussein, Yasser Murtaja, Moath Amarneh, and Nidal Shtayyeh, and the media in general by the Israeli army since all journalists represented in the two complaints wore clearly marked press jackets when they were targeted.

Today’s complaint represents, for the first time, a real opportunity to hold Israel accountable for targeting journalists and could lead to an official investigation by the ICC Prosecutor and possible legal cases filed against the perpetrators.

A delegation from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate arrived yesterday at the headquarters of the ICC headed by Nasser Abu Bakr, who is also the Vice President of the International Federation of Journalists, and a delegation from the International Federation of Journalists, as well as Anton Abu Akleh and a number of international lawyers, to submit the complaint and take part in a press conference on the issue.