Shireen Abu Akleh?s colleagues find strength in her legacy

“Her death made me more dedicated to telling the story of our people, like Shireen who remained objective and Palestinian.”From news producers to cameramen, editors to correspondents; from people Shireen only met a few months ago, to others whose relationship spanned decades, her colleagues all repeated – if in their own words – that same message.“Our voices are being targeted because we have something to say – the story of where we live – and for that, we’ll stay strong,” said Ibrahim.Walking through the streets of Ramallah, the city where Abu Akleh spent the major part of her career, photos of the veteran Al Jazeera journalist can be seen adorning the walls of shops and cafes. Abu Akleh’s office, now a little memorial, is filled with flowers, candles, and farewell notes, commemorating her long career and the legacy she left behind.Born in 1972 in Jerusalem, Abu Akleh spent nearly 30 years reporting from the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, covering the second Intifada, the death of Yasser Arafat, the Israel-Lebanon war, wars on Gaza, and multiple Israeli incursions in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.In between lives and news developments, her colleagues huddle around endless cups of Arabic coffee and cigarettes, to reminisce about their good times with Abu Akleh, as well as the more difficult ones in the field.As if a way to help them grieve, they swipe through old photo albums on their phones and wade through notes she wrote in preparation for a story, or books she read to understand the nitty-gritty of a topic she was about to report on.Through the tears and emotions, they recall her most memorable qualities: kind, humble, smart, passionate, funny, professional, and most of all a human.“Shireen was an example of the ‘human journalist’,” said Mariam-Mayssa Salameh, a news producer at Al Jazeera’s Ramallah bureau, who worked with Shireen for 23 years.“Her death is a huge loss for a whole generation of young journalists – especially women – who looked up to her as a teacher and someone who showed the way of how to a professional journalist and human at the same time,” she added.“There was so much oppression, injustice, and inhumanity in what she reported on,” said Zabaneh.