The Biden Administration invites the relatives of Shirín abú Aklé to a meeting in Washington

July 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The United States Administration has invited to a meeting in Washington the relatives of the American-Palestinian journalist Shirín abu Aklé, killed during an Israeli military incursion in the West Bank on May 11, following a letter sent by the family to the American president, Joe Biden, in which he accuses Washington of “whitewashing” his death.

“The Administration, under the direction of the president (Joe Biden), has been very committed to helping try to determine what exactly happened around the tragic circumstances of his death,” the National Security Adviser of United States, Jake Sullivan.

The family had requested to meet with US President Joe Biden during his visit to the Middle East “so that he can hear directly from us our demands for justice” and “provide us with all the information gathered by his government on Shirin’s death.”

Sullivan reported Wednesday that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Shirín’s relatives. “This is a horrible tragedy, and we will continue to work and engage deeply. This issue will be one of the issues at stake on this visit,” he said.

It must be remembered that the conclusions of the independent investigation carried out by the United Nations Office for Human Rights on the death of the journalist coincide with the evaluation carried out by the Palestinian authorities, which point to the Israeli forces as being responsible for the death of the journalist. reporter.

In the letter sent to Biden, the family of the Al Jazeera journalist expressed their “sense of betrayal” by the “miserable response” of the United States to the “extrajudicial killing” of the journalist at the hands of Israeli forces in Jenin.

In particular, they criticized the fact that, despite all the evidence collected by the press and human rights organizations that points to an “extrajudicial execution,” the Administration meticulously denied “any minimal possibility of a rapid, thorough, credible, meticulous, credible investigation. , impartial, independent, effective and transparent”.

“Instead, the United States has flirted with erasing any crime by the Israeli forces” to finally “take over the narrative of the Israeli government on July 4,” the journalist’s family argued.

The conclusions of the investigation also dismantle the narrative that there was activity by armed Palestinians in the vicinity of the position where the reporters were, as Israel pointed out at the time. The Israeli Army admitted several days later the possibility that the journalist died from a shot fired by its own forces, but always unintentionally.