The room was packed, but space was made for Shireen Abu Akleh, as a picture of the slain journalist was placed on a chair ahead of a news conference by President Joe Biden in the West Bank Friday.
Biden, who is on a four-day official visit of the Middle East, was in the city of Bethlehem for a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas.
Ahead of their joint press conference, the picture of the Palestinian-American reporter who covered the Middle East for more than 25 years, was placed in the front row of seats.
“Shireen Abu Akleh, voice of Palestine,” was written underneath the image of the veteran Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead in mid-May during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.
Calling for an end to the violence in the region, Biden told the news conference that her death was an “enormous loss.”
“She was an American citizen and a proud Palestinian. She was performing very vital work in an independent media and vital work of democracy,” he said.
Biden resisted calls last month from a group of 24 U.S. senators, all of them Democrats plus two independents, for “a thorough and transparent investigation under U.S. auspices” into Abu Akleh’s death.