Abu Akleh’s family asks Biden for meeting to hear demands during upcoming trip to region

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- The family of slain Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has urged US President Joe Biden to meet with it and provide it with all of the information gathered by US administration concerning Shireen’s killing during his upcoming trip to the region.

In a letter sent to the US president on Friday morning, the family called on Biden to meet with it during his upcoming visit to the region and hear directly from it about its concerns and demands for justice.

The family also demanded to provide it with all of the information gathered by the Biden administration to date concerning Abu Akleh’s killing, “including any evidence reviewed and assessed by U.S. officials, the identities and qualifications of all individuals present during the latest review of evidence, any forensics reports or other information that has not been provided to us or our legal team.”

Biden is expected to visit ‘Israel’, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia between July 13-16.

Retract the Department of State’s July 4 press statement, given that the Department’s own account indicates that it is not based on any credible assessment, Abu Akleh’s family wrote.

The family also called Biden to direct the Department of Justice, including the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Bureau, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and any other relevant U.S. offices or agencies to “take action on Shireen’s extrajudicial killing.”

“Finally, and it should be needless to say, we expect the Biden administration support our
efforts to push for accountability and justice for Shireen, wherever they take us,” the family concluded their demands.

The family said it has wrote to Biden to “express our grief, outrage and sense of betrayal concerning your administration’s abject response to the extrajudicial killing of our sister and aunt by Israeli forces on May 11, 2022, while on assignment in the occupiedPalestinian city of Jenin in the West Bank.”

Despite wearing a protective helmet
and blue bulletproof vest clearly marked as “PRESS,” the 51-year-old journalist was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the head while she was covering an Israeli military raid into the Jenin refugee camp on May 11, sparking international outrage and calls for accountability for attacks on journalists. The slain journalist covered events and Israeli aggressions in the occupied Palestinian territory for 25 years.

Multiple witnesses said that Israeli forces killed the veteran journalist. Reports by the investigative group Bellingcat, The Associated Press, CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times have also come to the same conclusion.

On June 24, the UN’s OHCHR also announced that information it had gathered showed that the bullets that killed Abu Akleh were fired by Israeli forces.

Spokesperson for the UN’s OHCHR, Ravina Shamdasani, told reporters in Geneva, “All information we have gathered is consistent with the finding that the shots that killed Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi came from Israeli security forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians.”

The CNN investigation in May said evidence suggests that the veteran journalist was killed in a “targeted attack by Israeli forces”.

A probe by the Palestinian Authority found that Abu Akleh was deliberately shot by Israeli forces.

On July 4, the US Department of State said that independent investigators could “not reach a definitive conclusion” regarding the origin of the bullet that killed Al Jazeera veteran journalist, but said Israeli gunfire was “likely responsible” for her death.

“Ballistic experts determined the bullet was badly damaged, which prevented a clear conclusion,” the United States government said in a statement.

“In addition to the forensic and ballistic analysis, the USSC was granted full access to both Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian Authority (PA) investigations over the last several weeks.”

“By summarizing both investigations, the USSC concluded that gunfire from IDF positions was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh,” the statement read. “The USSC found no reason to believe that this was intentional,” the US claimed.

Abu Akleh’s family said in a statement that day it was “incredulous” that the examination could not determine whose gun fired the bullet that killed her.

“We will continue to advocate for justice for Shireen, and to hold the Israeli military and government accountable, no matter the attempts to obfuscate the reality of what happened on May 11,” it said.

A senior Palestinian official accused the US of protecting the Israeli occupation authorities after the forensic examination failed to reach a firm conclusion on the origin of the bullet.

“The truth is clear but the US administration continues to stall in announcing it,” Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Reuters news agency.

“We say Israel killed Shireen Abu Akleh and it has to be held responsible for the crime it has committed.”

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said that the US State Department’s statement on the shooting likely being unintentional “is a key issue” that will be widely questioned.

“There is no clear [finding] as to exactly what happened, and there is going to be pressure from the public, [and] from Congress, to actually push this further. To try and find some way in which a more definitive answer can be found,” he said.

“There is no clear definition of exactly what happened, why it happened, [or] who did it.”

Akram al-Khatib, general prosecutor for the Palestinian Authority, told Al Al Jazeera on Saturday that officials had “agreed to transfer the bullet to the Americans for examination”.

In the last six weeks, the Biden administration has pressed the Palestinians to hand over the bullet, U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios. After refusing for weeks, the Palestinians in recent days signaled they might be willing to change course.

Last Thursday, Secretary of State Tony Blinken spoke on the phone with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and asked him again to give the bullet to the US, a State Department official said, before Biden’s trip.

“In the days and weeks since an Israeli soldier killed Shireen, not only have we not been adequately consulted, informed, and supported by U.S. government officials, but your administration’s actions exhibit an apparent intent to undermine our efforts toward justice and accountability for Shireen’s death,” the family said the Friday’s statement.

“From the failure to immediately ensure an independent and impartial investigation, to the
rushed hand-off of the bullet that killed Shireen without consultation let alone allowing us to have a representative present, which culminated in the July 4 statement adopting the conclusions and talking points of the Israeli government, your administration’s engagement has served to whitewash Shireen’s killing and perpetuate impunity.”

It added, “Little information has been shared on who oversaw the American “summation” of investigations, who participated in the ballistics
assessment, or any specific individual qualifications or findings leading to the conclusions issued by your administration. It is as if you expect the world and us to now just move on. Silence would have been better.”