Biden administration covered up slaying of Palestinian Catholic journalist, documentary charges
May 13, 2025
Three years after the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist and Melkite Greek Catholic laywoman, the makers of a new documentary film charged that she was intentionally shot by an Israeli soldier and that the Biden administration joined in a cover-up of the killing.
“The Biden administration and the Israeli government essentially were doing everything they could to cover up what happened that day to Shireen Abu Akleh,” said Dion Nissenbaum, executive producer of Who Killed Shireen? Nissenbaum added:
The initial U.S. assessment of her shooting was that that soldier intentionally shot her and that he could tell that she was wearing a blue flak jacket with “press” across it. That assessment was essentially overruled by the Biden administration, which came out and said exactly the opposite. That’s a fairly startling revelation.
In an article in the May 12 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, Father Ibrahim Faltas, vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, recalled the Israeli use of force at the journalist’s funeral—condemned at the time by a Vatican envoy and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
“Never before had a funeral been attacked by the police,” said Father Faltas. “Shireen was a woman of great faith, not only a good professional but also a woman with a big heart who did so much good for the most suffering of the Palestinian people.”
Antony Abu Akleh, the slain journalist’s brother, told the Vatican newspaper:
There has been no real investigation into my sister’s death by the Israelis and I must say that, given how they have behaved up to now, even if there were one, we could never accept their biased conclusions. Instead, there is an investigation conducted by the US Department of Justice that I hope will soon conclude its work by identifying those responsible for that criminal event ...
She was a woman of deep faith, like all of us, and I am consoled by the thought that today she is in a world of peace, more beautiful than the one we live in in occupied Palestine .. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza, and this is very painful and alarming not only for us but for the entire world.
“She entered the hearts of many,” he added. “In the end, she had truly become the voice of Palestine, the voice of those who suffer the terrible conditions of the occupation. Among them, the gentle and suffering voice of the Christians in the Holy Land, to whom she felt particularly connected because of her deep faith.”
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