The family of a Palestinian-American reporter killed while covering an Israeli raid in the West Bank attacked US President Joe Biden in a letter released Friday over his administration’s reaction to the death of US President Joe Biden.
Relatives of Al Jazeera reporter Shirin Abu Akleh express “sadness, outrage and [a] sense of betrayal,” accused the US of trying to erode Israel’s responsibility for his death. A US statement earlier this week said he may have died in Israeli firing, but the May 11 shooting in the West Bank city of Jenin was not intentional.
The fallout of the murder is likely to cast a shadow over Biden’s visits to Israel and the West Bank next week. There was no immediate reaction from US officials.
A reconstruction by the Associated Press lent support to Palestinian eyewitnesses who said they were shot by Israeli forces without making a final determination. Investigations by CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as oversight by the UN Human Rights Office, came to a similar conclusion.
Israel denies that he was deliberately targeted, and says he could have been shot by an Israeli soldier or a Palestinian gunman during the exchange of fire. The State Department said in a July 4 statement that the bullet that killed him was so badly damaged that it was necessary to determine who fired the shot.
The statement said the US had summarized separate investigations by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, concluding that he was killed by Israeli fire. But it found “there is no reason to believe it was intentional,” adding that it was the result of “tragic circumstances.”
The US did not say how it reached those conclusions or cited evidence to support them.
Shireen Abu Akleh reporting from West Bank in an undated clip for Al Jazeera (Al Jazeera screenshot)
The Abu Akleh family said “all available evidence” suggests he was killed intentionally by an Israeli soldier and that the administration had “completely failed to meet the minimum expectation” of a credible, independent investigation.
“Instead, the United States tends to eradicate any wrongdoing by Israeli forces,” he said. “It’s like you expect the world and us to just move on. Silence would have been better.”
The family also asked Biden to meet with him when he toured the area.
US lawmakers have pressured the administration to launch an independent investigation into the murder of Abu Akleh, a veteran on-air correspondent for Al Jazeera’s Arabic language service that was widely known and respected in the Arab world.
Abu Akleh, then 51, spent a quarter-century reporting on the realities of life under Israeli military rule. Palestinians see him as a martyr for journalism as well as for his national cause.
There has been widespread criticism of Israeli police for beating mourners and clapping at his funeral in Jerusalem on May 14. Last month, an Israeli newspaper reported that a police investigation found wrongdoing by some of its officers, but said those who oversaw the incident would not be punished seriously. ,
Palestinians surround the Palestinian flag-surfaced body of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Aqleh as it is brought to the news channel’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 11, 2022. (Abbas Momani/pool via AP)
State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday that the United States has sought accountability for the death of Abu Akleh, but has barred Israel from recommending the initiation of a criminal case. The IDF says they are still investigating the death.
Two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Monday that Israel was angered by the State Department’s decision that it was responsible for the shooting and told its American counterparts that the findings should have stayed out of the US statement, noting a The bullet was found too damaged to reach a definite answer.
