The Biden administration has opened an FBI investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian American journalist who was shot in the head and killed last May while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank — even as she wore a helmet clearly labeled ”PRESS.” 

Tel Aviv, November 16 (RHC)-- The Biden administration has opened an FBI investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian American journalist who was shot in the head and killed last May while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank — even as she wore a helmet clearly labeled ”PRESS.” 

Israeli officials initially blamed Palestinians for her death, then called evidence “inconclusive,” before once again changing their story in September to say Abu Akleh may have been “accidentally” hit by Israeli troops’ gunfire after they came under fire from Palestinian gunmen. 

But eyewitness accounts and videos of the area where Shireen was killed do not show a gun battle, and investigations by Al Jazeera, The New York Times, CNN and other news outlets also challenge the official Israeli version of Abu Akleh’s killing.

Abu Akleh’s family called the U.S. investigation an important step toward accountability, writing: “It is what the United States should do when a U.S. citizen is killed abroad, especially when they were killed, like Shireen, by a foreign military.”

Israel’s Minister of Defense Benny Gantz called the U.S. decision to investigate Abu Akleh’s killing a “grave mistake,” adding: “I have made it clear to the U.S. that we won’t cooperate with any external investigation and won’t allow any interference in Israel’s internal affairs.”