Immediately after having been sworn in to the 115th US Congress, Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Dean Heller and Marco Rubio introduced legislation to relocate the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Such a move has been opposed for decades by US presidents but President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled during the election campaign that he is willing to move the embassy.

“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel, and that's where America's embassy belongs,” Rubio said.

“It's time for Congress and the President-elect to eliminate the loophole that has allowed presidents in both parties to ignore U.S. law and delay our embassy's rightful relocation to Jerusalem for over two decades,” he added.

Dean Heller said that some State Department funds would be withheld until the embassy was relocated.

Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has indicated last month that moving the embassy to Jerusalem "is a very big priority” for Trump, while media reports in Israel at the time indicated the transition team for Trump is already looking into possible locations in Jerusalem for the embassy.

American presidents from both parties have long called for Jerusalem's status to be resolved by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as part of a larger peace deal. But there has been persistent congressional support for moving the U.S. Embassy, most notably in 1995, when Congress passed a similar measure.

The 1995 measure allowed the President to exercise a waiver delaying the move. That waiver must be renewed every six months, which U.S. presidents have repeatedly done, with President Barack Obama signing the latest waiver at the start of December.

“Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel,” Cruz said in a statemen. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration's vendetta against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this simple truth — let alone the reality that Jerusalem is the appropriate venue for the American embassy in Israel — is shocking in some circles.

"But it is finally time to cut through the double-speak and broken promises and do what Congress said we should do in 1995: formally move our embassy to the capital of our great ally Israel,” he added.