WASHINGTON (Al Jazeera) – The United States has said ahead of President Joe Biden’s visit to the Israeli-occupied territories that it is still seeking the extradition from Jordan of a Palestinian woman allegedly aiding in a bomb attack in Al-Quds in 2001.
The family of a girl killed in the attack has urged Biden to press Jordan, a close U.S. ally, to send Ahlam al-Tamimi to the U.S. for trial.
“We ask that you address this as only the leader of the United States can,” Frimet and Arnold Roth, the parents of Malki Roth, who was 15 when she was killed in the bombing, wrote in a letter.
Al-Tamimi was released by Israel in a 2011 prisoner exchange with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and sent to Jordan, where she currently lives.
“The U.S. government continues to seek her extradition and the Government of Jordan’s assistance in bringing her to justice for her role in the attack,” the National Security Council said on Monday, according to The Associated Press news agency.
The apparent renewed U.S. efforts to extradite al-Tamimi comes amid pressure by press freedom and human rights groups on the Biden administration to ensure accountability for the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was a U.S. citizen.
Abu Akleh was the second American citizen to be killed by Zionist troops this year. Omar Assad, an elderly Palestinian American, died after being arbitrarily detained by the occupying regime’s troops in the occupied West Bank in January.
While verbally calling for accountability in both cases, the Biden administration has done little – at least publicly – to pressure the occupying regime to bring the two Americans’ killers to justice.
Earlier this month, Washington said the killing of Abu Akleh was the unintentional “result of tragic circumstances”.
Last week, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slammed the State Department for its handling of the killing.