US To Deliver Weapons To Israel Despite Tensions
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Israeli-American relations appeared to be back on track on Good Friday as President Joe Biden’s administration pledged to transfer billions of dollars in bombs and warplanes, several officials said.
The announcement came after the United States declined to veto the United Nations Security Council resolution on an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, prompting Israel to cancel a high-level visit to Washington.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter.
The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous “mass-casualty events” in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, critics said, although the Hamas-run health ministry’s figures of 31,000 killed have been complex to verify independently.
Last week, the U.S. State Department also authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said.
The case was reportedly approved by Congress in 2008, so the department was not required to provide a new notification to lawmakers.
The MK84 and MK82 bombs authorized this week for transfer also were approved by the U.SX Congress years ago but had not yet been fulfilled, The Washington Post newspaper reported.
WAR CONDUCT
U.S. officials, speaking anonymously to The Washington Post, suggested that while rifts emerged between the White House and Israel over its war conduct, the Biden administration views weapons transfers as “off-limits” when considering how to influence the actions of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yet the transfers come despite Washington’s worries about an imminent invasion by Israel in southern Gaza. “We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” added a White House official. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”
Israel pledged to warn civilians ahead of possible massive military actions in, for instance, Rafah, the southern city of Gaza bordering Egypt.
Some 1.4 million people are believed to be in Rafah, and over 1 million Palestinians have fled there to seek shelter during the Israel-Hamas war, according to the United Nations.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said last week that a victory against Hamas is “impossible” without the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entering Rafah to “eliminate” the rest of “the terrorist group’s battalions.”
Hamas killed at least some 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others on October 7, Israeli officials said, in what Netanyahu called “the worst atrocities against Jews” since the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah.
The attacks on what Israelis have described as the “Black Sabbath” led to Israel’s war against Hamas, deemed a terrorist organization by Israel and most of its allies.
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