US invites Shireen Abu Akleh’s family to Washington

Washington (QNN)- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has invited the family of slain Palestinian-American journalist of Al Jazeera Shireen Abu Akleh for a meeting in Washington, as President Joe Biden visits ‘Israel’ and the occupied West Bank.

Shireen Abu Akleh’s brother, Tony, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday that no specific date was set for the meeting yet, adding that the family hopes President Biden would also attend.

“What’s important and what we want to get is justice for Shireen,” Tony said.

Blinken offered the meeting in a phone call on Wednesday, Tony noted.

On June 4, Abu Akleh’s family slammed the State Department’s examination of the bullet that killed Shireen, saying it was “incredulous” that the examination could not determine whose gun fired that bullet.

In a statement, the family said, “With respect to today’s announcement by the State Department – on July 4, no less – that a test of the spent round that killed Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen, was inconclusive as to the origin of the gun that fired it, we are incredulous.”

Last Friday, the family also called on the U.S. president to meet with them in Bethlehem during his visit and divulge all of the information gathered concerning Shireen’s killing.

In a letter addressed to Biden and signed by Tony Abu Akleh on behalf of her family, her siblings and their children refer to her May death as an “extrajudicial killing,” and say that the U.S. government has not “adequately consulted, informed, and supported” the family.

They 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.

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.