WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Eight Republican Senators in the U.S. have penned a letter to the FBI and Department of Justice (DoJ) to cease their investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
The eight lawmakers suggest that the probe could negatively affect U.S. ties with the Zionist regime.
“This misguided investigation into the IDF [the Zionist regime’s military], which the DOJ and FBI have no jurisdiction over, must be closed immediately before further harm comes to our bilateral relationship with Israel,” reads the letter.
It also said that the Zionist regime’s military had completed an investigation into the killing and found they could not determine the source of the gunfire.
The United States had already opposed Al Jazeera’s efforts to have the Zionist regime prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Tel Aviv’s murder of the Qatari news network’s veteran journalist.
“We oppose it in this case,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters earlier in December after the network took the murder’s case to the ICC.
Wearing press attire, 51-year-old Abu Akleh was murdered in cold blood while covering a Zionist military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on May 11. Later, her funeral was also attacked by the regime forces.
The Zionist regime’s military has only admitted that the journalist had been “accidentally” killed by the regime forces’ gunfire.
The regime has insisted that it would neither open any criminal investigation into the case, nor would it cooperate with any such relevant probe.
Price reaffirmed the U.S.’s decades-old policy of protecting the regime against whatever instance of accountability at international organizations, including The Hague-based court, over its atrocities against Palestinians. The unwavering American policy has seen Washington invariably use its veto power to block anti-Zionist resolutions at the United Nations.
“We maintain our longstanding objections to the ICC’s investigation into the Palestinian situation,” Price said when asked about Al Jazeera’s request from the court.
Besides shielding the Israeli regime on the international arena, the U.S. provides Tel Aviv with an annual military assistance package worth close to $4 billion that it freely uses to shore up its occupation of the Palestinian territories and reinforce its often deadly efforts to trample on Palestinians’ freedoms.