Shireen Abu Akleh family meets Blinken in Washington
Washington (QNN)- Family members of slain Palestinian-American journalist of Al Jazeera Shireen Abu Akleh met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, renewing their demands for justice for the veteran journalist.
Lina Abu Akleh, Shireen’s niece, said the family stressed at the meeting on Tuesday the need for a “US investigation that leads to real accountability”.
Accountability requires action. We look forward to a US investigation that leads to real consequences.
Shireen was my aunt and the voice of Palestine and she was killed by an Israeli soldier. #JusticeForShireen https://t.co/OF7cLYcAwb— Lina Abu Akleh (@LinaAbuAkleh) July 27, 2022
“Although he made some commitments on Shireen’s killing, we’re still waiting to see if this administration will meaningfully answer our calls for #JusticeForShireen,” Lina Abu Akleh wrote on Twitter after the talks with Blinken.
She also reiterated the family’s request for a meeting with President Joe Biden, which she said would show “Shireen’s case is a priority for this administration.”
Lina Abu Akleh added Blinken told the family that protecting US citizens is his duty. “Nothing short of a US investigation that leads to real accountability is acceptable, and we won’t stop until no other American or Palestinian family endures the same pain we have,” she wrote.
Our family just finished meeting with @SecBlinken. Although he made some commitments on Shireen’s killing, we’re still waiting to see if this administration will meaningfully answer our calls for #JusticeForShireen.
— Lina Abu Akleh (@LinaAbuAkleh) July 26, 2022
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price confirmed the meeting during a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, saying that Blinken was meeting the family and would reiterate the need for accountability.
“Part of this meeting is providing the secretary an opportunity to convey messages to them – it will be a message of condolence. There will be a message of the priority we attach to accountability going forward,” Price said.
“But this offers also equally an opportunity for the secretary to hear from the family, to hear their important perspective, to have a dialogue back and forth.”
Today I met with the family of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose fearless journalism earned her the respect of audiences around the world. I expressed my deepest condolences and commitment to pursue accountability for her tragic killing. pic.twitter.com/zJL4zR6l2E
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 27, 2022
The meeting in Washington follows a call from Abu Akleh’s family for a meeting with Biden when he visited ‘Israel’ and the occupied West Bank earlier this month. The Biden administration instead offered the family a meeting in the US.
The Abu Akleh family said in a statement first reported by Politico earlier on Tuesday that since the “President didn’t come to us in Jerusalem to hear first-hand our grief, outrage and concerns regarding his administration’s lack of response to Shireen’s extrajudicial killing, we decided to come to him.”
The Abu Akleh family, according to Lina, will spend their time in Washington also meeting with lawmakers who she thanked for being willing to take the time to speak to them.
Since Abu Akleh’s death, there have been multiple efforts in the Congress to call for a US-led investigation into the killing, both in the House and the Senate.
“It’s worth noting that, to date, 24 US senators and 57 members of the House of Representatives have called on the Biden administration to initiate a thorough, credible, independent, and transparent US investigation into Shireen’s killing, and we are grateful to every single one of them,” the family said in the statement.
“We will be meeting with some of these members this week, and we thank them for making time to discuss next steps around Shireen’s case.”
Today I welcomed the family of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to offer my condolences, hear about Shireen’s life & work, and join them in urging @SecBlinken to launch a thorough U.S. investigation to ensure accountability for her death. #JusticeforShireen pic.twitter.com/rlTx0R000x
— Rep. Betty McCollum (@BettyMcCollum04) July 26, 2022
Thank you @RepJayapal and @USProgressives for joining our call for a US investigation into the Israeli killing of my aunt Shireen Abu Akleh. We need accountability and #JusticeForShireen pic.twitter.com/LnHeqpWzuh
— Lina Abu Akleh (@LinaAbuAkleh) July 26, 2022
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.
On July 4, the Department of State acknowledged that the fatal bullet that struck Abu Akleh likely came from an Israeli forces position, but it framed the killing of the journalist as the unintentional “result of tragic circumstances”.
The US administration also said a “detailed forensic analysis” of the bullet concluded that it was too damaged to determine its source.
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.
