Americans for Peace Now welcomes a new Senate letter urging the Biden administration to launch an independent investigation into the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist killed while reporting for Al-Jazeera in the West Bank town of Jenin on May 11th.

Led by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), 24 Senators are adding their voices to last month’s request by 57 Members of the House of Representatives that the State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) launch an investigation into Ms. Abu Akleh’s killing.

APN’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind said: “We are grateful to Senator Van Hollen and his colleagues for their continued leadership on this matter. However, it is unfortunate that this letter is still needed. Given the independent investigations by widely respected media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and Al Jazeera, all of which underscored the need for an official independent, thorough, and transparent investigation into her killing, and despite several congressional letters calling for that very thing, the administration has still not acted.

Freedom of the press is of paramount importance, and it is vital to the safety of our foreign press that other countries, particularly our allies, understand that the United States will not allow the killing of our journalists to be brushed aside.”