NEW YORK– Addressing last week’s general debate at the opening of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly held in New York, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State and Head of the Delegation of the Holy See, said during his speech that the Holy See deplored the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and police behavior at her funeral in Jerusalem.
Al-Jazeera journalist Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli army gunfire on May 11 while covering an Israeli army assault on the northern West Bank city of Jenin. Two days later, and during her funeral in occupied East Jerusalem, the Israeli police attacked the funeral, severely beating with clubs the pallbearers and the mourners to a point the coffin almost fell to the ground.
“The Holy See does not cease to follow with concern the Palestinian issue, and the conflict that it generates, and wishes to express its closeness to the Palestinian people for the suffering caused by the killing of the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh,” said Cardinal Parolin.
“The Holy See not only deplores in clear terms this and the other killings that have been on the increase in recent months, but it cannot fail to express its horror at what happened at the funeral of the deceased Shireen in Jerusalem, provoked by an unacceptable and absolutely reprehensible attitude on the part of the police: dignity and respect for a deceased person precedes any consideration of security, and those who fail in this cannot be in charge of public order,” he added.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency