Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, has apologized for the delay in submitting an updated report on the assassination of fellow Al Jazeera correspondent Shirin Abu Akleh to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Leaf told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that she expected the committee to see the report soon.
Shireen Abu Akleh was killed on May 11, 2022 by a bullet to the head while covering one of the Israeli occupation army incursions in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.
The IDF decided not to conduct a criminal investigation into the case because Shireen's killing was a mistake, while independent investigations by several news organizations, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the New York Times, concluded that an Israeli soldier was more likely to have fired the fatal bullet.
A year later, no one has been held accountable for Shireen's death, despite calls for an independent and credible investigation by her family, by the International Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and by high-ranking US officials.
American Ignoring
US President Joe Biden's administration has so far failed to respond to demands from senators, such as Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, to know the fate of the FBI's investigation into the assassination of Shirin Abu Akleh.
The Biden administration has welcomed the findings announced by the Israeli military on the fifth of last September on the assassination of Shireen, and said that they match the conclusion reached by the US security coordinator between Palestinians and Israelis, General Michael Finzel.
However, Al Jazeera Media Network denounced the Israeli occupation army's failure to explicitly admit its responsibility for Shireen's assassination, and its attempt to evade the prosecution of the perpetrators, and demanded that an independent international body investigate the crime.