By Dave DeCamp
US officials have said a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs to Israel was put on pause last week but also announced a new $827 million weapons package for Israel, the contents of which are unclear.
The officials said that the bomb shipment was paused over concerns about Israel launching a full-scale invasion of Rafah, and they described the move as the first delay in US military aid to Israel since October 7.
Israel ended up going ahead with an attack on Rafah to capture the Palestinian side of the border crossing that connects to Egypt in an operation that was approved by President Biden. The US has insisted the Israeli operation is “limited,” although the attack involved heavy strikes on the city, which is packed with over 1 million civilians.
US officials said the Biden administration is also reviewing the delivery of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which convert dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons. But all of the bombs could still be delivered as an official told The Washington Post that the US has “not made a final determination on how to proceed.”
The Post report also said that the delay won’t impact the Israeli military at the moment as it has enough US-supplied weapons to expand its operations in Rafah into a full-scale invasion of the city. The Israeli military is downplaying the hold-up and is pointing to the unprecedented support it has received from the US for the past seven months.
The US has approved hundreds of arms packages and shipped tens of thousands of heavy bombs to Israel since October 7. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari described the US support for Israel as “a scope without precedent” and said any issue between the two nations would be worked out “behind closed doors.”
A US official told Fox News that despite the pause, the US was still committed to Israel and would provide the country with all of the $17 billion in military included in the new $95 billion foreign aid spending bill. “We are committed to ensuring Israel gets every dollar appropriated in the supplemental. In fact, we just approved the latest tranche of Foreign Military Financing: $827 million worth of weapons and equipment for Israel,” the official said.
Foreign Military Financing is a State Department program that provides governments with funds to purchase US weapons. The contents of the FMF package the US has approved haven’t been publicized, as much of the new US assistance for Israel has been provided without transparency.
Source: Antiwar
Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave. View all posts by Dave DeCamp
Image: Anthony Freda Art – “Endless War”
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