She was a famend journalist, however to her niece, Shireen was a Christmas-loving aunt and the ‘spine’ of the household.
![Shireen Abu Akleh [Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Shireen-Abu-Akleh-3.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Every year, as Christmas approached, Lina Abu Akleh would sit up for spending time together with her aunt.
Lina and her siblings – an older brother and a youthful sister – would get along with their dad and mom and their father’s youthful sister on the household dwelling in occupied East Jerusalem, the place they’d get pleasure from an enormous Christmas lunch.
However this 12 months, it's a day 27-year-old Lina is dreading.
That's as a result of on Might 11, Lina’s aunt, the 51-year-old veteran tv correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, was shot lifeless by Israeli forces. She and different journalists – all wearing protecting helmets and blue flak jackets marked “Press” – had been fired upon as they walked down a street within the occupied West Financial institution metropolis of Jenin.
Her killing despatched shockwaves around the globe. The Palestinian-American correspondent, who labored with Al Jazeera for 25 years, was identified to be a cautious, devoted journalist whose compassionate reporting centred on the voices and tales of Palestinians dwelling underneath Israeli occupation.
That morning in Might, Lina, who's campaigning for justice for Abu Akleh, didn't solely lose a beloved aunt however a “second mom” to her and her siblings. Abu Akleh was at all times there, “a spine to our household,” she says.
“It was simply my dad and mom, my siblings and Shireen,” Lina provides.
“Not having her round, particularly throughout Christmas can be very tough … There can be an empty seat across the desk.”
‘Loved Christmas’
It's a Sunday night in early December, and Lina is sitting within the ground-floor café of a resort within the Dutch metropolis of The Hague on the North Sea. The area is full of the low chatter of diners and the tinkling of cutlery and glasses. A display behind Lina shows a crackling log hearth and a big Christmas tree stands by the resort entrance.
December was historically a “comfortable month” when Abu Akleh may take a break from her busy job to spend time with Lina and her siblings who had been typically finding out or working overseas in the course of the 12 months.
“She actually loved Christmas,” says Lina. They'd typically put up the household tree collectively and Abu Akleh beloved the Ramallah Christmas markets, whose native distributors she favored to help.
Abu Akleh at all times considered items for everybody, even her small fluffy white canine Filfel, named so in Arabic as a result of like pepper he was “spicey” and at all times transferring. One Christmas, Abu Akleh wrapped a crocodile-shaped squeaky toy and positioned it underneath the tree. “He knew that it was his,” Lina remembers laughing. “And I bear in mind we had been laughing about it a lot as a result of she was simply amazed. She’s like, ‘How did he know that it was his reward?’”
‘These had been our traditions’
A lot of Lina’s reminiscences of Christmases with Abu Akleh are related to meals – one thing “Shireen beloved”. On Christmas Eve, the household would have dinner at a restaurant in Ramallah with carols or another festive leisure, after which the following morning Lina’s mom would begin to put together lunch – a “feast”.
There can be warak dawali – stuffed grape leaves – and Lina’s mom, who's Armenian and whose dad and mom as soon as had a bakery specialising in lahmajoun (a flatbread with meat) in Jerusalem’s Armenian quarter, would make dishes like soubeureg – a time-consuming layered pastry made with selfmade boiled dough “full of cheese, parsley, and quite a lot of butter”.
“She at all times beloved Armenian meals, particularly my mother’s,” Lina explains.
Abu Akleh would come to the kitchen to assist out. “However she would even be nibbling right here and there, tasting the meals. Like I can simply image her now strolling across the kitchen,” remembers Lina smiling, earlier than including that her aunt would make a gesture of rubbing her fingers collectively to point out she was “excited to eat”.
“These had been our traditions – nothing fancy – however it was nonetheless one thing we seemed ahead to,” says Lina of the household meals and footage taken in entrance of the tree.
Lina reveals a photograph on her telephone of a smiling Abu Akleh standing in entrance of the Christmas tree one 12 months as she holds Filfel who's wearing a inexperienced and purple jumper with “Merry Christmas” and a sweet cane on it.
“I’m dreading it as a result of I can't be waking as much as her Merry Christmas needs,” says Lina, earlier than repeating these phrases in Arabic within the melodic approach that her aunt would say them – with an enormous smile on her face and her head tilted to 1 aspect.
‘Discover the silver lining’
Lina smiles typically when she talks about her aunt, with whom she would communicate or message each day. “We had a really shut connection,” she says.
Abu Akleh was a family title within the Arab world by which many grew up listening to her legendary sign-off. “It was the enduring sign-off that I feel generations grew up attempting to mimic,” explains Lina. As a toddler, she would take her aunt’s notebooks and run to take a seat at her Lego desk and “report”, signing off together with her Barbie telephone: “Lina Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera, Palestine.”
For Lina, her aunt was completed, poised and courageous. “I wished to be like Shireen. To me, she was my position mannequin.”
Regardless of her severe on-camera persona, Lina says her aunt was humorous – and “enjoyable to be round.”
Abu Akleh at all times had tales to share and even after a complete day of reporting and chatting with folks, she was at all times concerned with listening to what Lina and her siblings had been as much as.
Lina not often noticed her aunt tense or offended and remembers her as “at all times smiling” and down-to-earth. “She would at all times discover the silver lining in each scenario and attempt to be optimistic.”
Nonetheless, Lina and her household frightened about Abu Akleh – when she was pushed by Israeli forces final 12 months whereas overlaying compelled expulsions of Palestinians and the crackdowns on protesters at Al-Aqsa Mosque, endured tear fuel or was harassed by settlers.
However she at all times reassured them, “’No, we're journalists, don’t fear,’ regardless that she knew deep down that in some unspecified time in the future they're targets,” recounts Lina.
Throughout tense intervals of the Israel-Palestine battle, seeing her aunt stay on tv would reassure Lina that she was secure.
“I by no means thought that she would get killed,” she says.
On the morning of Might 11, Lina’s father known as to inform her Abu Akleh had been injured. She known as her colleagues to get extra info and realized she had been shot. Nonetheless, Lina didn’t suppose it was something too severe. “My mother was like, pray, pray. And she or he began lighting all these candles round the home.” Then, a few minutes later, Lina known as Abu Akleh’s colleague again to listen to them sobbing and screaming. “That’s after I knew,” she says.
Talking almost seven months after Abu Akleh’s demise, the shock remains to be uncooked. “I nonetheless really feel like I’m on this nightmare. And it’s simply not ending,” she acknowledges.
“She was so current in our lives that for us to lose her on this sudden and heinous approach makes it so tough to grasp.”
Preventing for justice
Israel has modified its narrative on the killing of Abu Akleh, initially blaming a Palestinian gunman, earlier than months later saying there's a “excessive chance” the journalist was “unintentionally hit” by Israeli hearth. The Israeli authorities have mentioned they won't launch a felony investigation.
In September, Abu Akleh’s household submitted a grievance to the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC), whereas Lina and her father together with former colleagues got here to The Hague in December for Al Jazeera’s submission of a formal request to the ICC to analyze the killing.
However Lina, who has grow to be the face of this marketing campaign for accountability, remains to be studying the right way to navigate a public combat alongside her private grief. “It hasn’t been simple to totally sit with my emotions and mirror again on the previous six months and perceive how this tragedy has formed our lives,” she displays.
What retains her going is realizing that had it been one other member of the family, pal or colleague, Abu Akleh would have tirelessly fought for justice. “She was optimistic, at all times, that justice will prevail.”
Lina additionally needs to consistently remind the world who Abu Akleh was and “be sure that her legacy continues to be remembered, her title is remembered, her reminiscence’s alive.”
‘Get pleasure from life’
For Lina, preserving her aunt’s reminiscence alive can also be about remembering her optimism.
Even now, she believes her aunt would need her to be having fun with her life – one thing Lina has struggled with. “I might really feel responsible if I’m doing one thing enjoyable,” she admits. Lina wore black as an indication of mourning for six months and nonetheless typically does. “It’s very tough. However I attempt to at all times bear in mind her phrases telling me … get pleasure from life.”
“The whole lot I do in life now jogs my memory of her,” she says, explaining how her aunt would have been the primary particular person to textual content her after she arrived in The Hague. She beloved turning on her telephone after a flight to search out texts from Abu Akleh, who was at all times excited to listen to what she was doing and inform her to ship footage. “She’s now not a part of my journey,” Lina says.
“No matter how tough and demanding her job was, she was there, for each event, each milestone, each birthday, each celebration – she was current.”
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