"The Israel Police Commissioner in coordination with the Minister of Public Security has instructed that an investigation be conducted into the incident," the police said in a statement.

The United States and the European Union led criticism of the Israeli police's actions, after television footage showed officers charging the funeral procession on Friday of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and beat mourners.

The 51-year-old, a highly respected veteran of the Qatar-based news channel's Arabic service, was killed on Wednesday during an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank.

The coffin containing her body nearly fell to the ground after Israeli police intervened as the Palestinian mourners carried her casket from a hospital in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on Friday.

In its statement, the police force said it had been prepared "to facilitate a calm and dignified funeral... and had coordinated the funeral arrangements with her family.

"Unfortunately, hundreds of rioters tried to sabotage the ceremony and harm the police.

"As with any operational incident, and certainly an incident in which police officers were exposed to violence by rioters and in which force was subsequently used by the police, the Israel Police will be looking into the events that ensued during the funeral.

"The Israel Police supports its police officers, but as a professional organisation that seeks to learn and improve, it will also draw lessons from the incident."

It said the findings of the investigation would be presented to the commissioner in the coming days.

Earlier, the foundation of late Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the Israeli police charging the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is "reminiscent" of violence during apartheid South Africa.

"The scenes of members of the Israeli security forces attacking pallbearers at the funeral in Jerusalem of slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh yesterday were chillingly reminiscent of the brutality meted out to mourners at the funerals of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa during our struggle for freedom," Mamphela Ramphele, director of the Desmond Tutu Foundation, said in a statement.

"As Archbishop Tutu taught us, the perpetrators of violence and human rights violations might think they are advancing their goals, but are in fact undermining their own humanity and integrity," she said.

Ramphele added that members of the Israeli security forces were "evidently responsible" for Abu Akleh being shot in the head on Wednesday as she covered news in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"To further inflame the situation by attacking her funeral cortege is like seeking to extinguish righteous flames with a can of petrol," she said.

Other South Africans also joined an international outcry after Israeli security forces attacked the pallbearers on Friday.

Political analyst Eusebius McKaiser on Twitter said the violence was all too familiar.

"South Africans have such memory. Apartheid police also liked attacking us at our funerals after murdering us," he wrote.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing crimes of apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and inside Israel. 

Israel firmly rejects those allegations and accuses the group of bias.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Tutu died late last year after a lifetime battling injustice, during which he called for Palestinian statehood.

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