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The United States has supported Israel's offensive with arms supplies.
This has sparked a dispute over the transparency of sales.
Washington, DC – The United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 military sales to Israel since the Gaza War began on October 7.
These involved large quantities of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other deadly weapons, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing.
The delivery figure, in the thousands, which has not previously been reported, is the latest indication of Washington's extensive involvement in the polarizing five-month conflict - even as senior U.S. officials and lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel's military tactics in a campaign that health authorities say is... Gaza Strip killed more than 30,000 people.
A Palestinian family inspects their destroyed home after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, in late February.
© Loay Ayyoub/The Washington Post
USA supports Israel: 100 arms deliveries completed without public debate
Since the start of the conflict, only two approved foreign arms shipments to Israel have been disclosed: tank ammunition worth $106 million and components for the production of 155mm grenades worth $147.5 million.
These sales were made transparent to the public because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages using emergency authorization.
However, in the case of the 100 other transactions, known in government jargon as “Foreign Military Sales” (FMS), the arms transfers were carried out without public debate.
This was possible because they each fell below a certain price limit, above which the executive branch would have to inform Congress.
That's what U.S. officials and lawmakers said, like others who spoke on condition of anonymity about the sensitive military matter.
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Former US official: “Israel’s offensive would not be sustainable without this level of support”
Overall, the weapons packages represent a massive transfer of force. This comes at a time when senior US officials have complained that Israeli officials are heeding their appeals to limit civilian casualties, allow more aid into the Gaza Strip and to refrain from rhetoric that calls for the permanent expulsion of the Palestinians.
“That's an extraordinary number of sales in a fairly short period of time, which really strongly suggests that Israel's offensive would be unsustainable without this level of U.S. support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and current one President of Refugees International.
The Israeli government has not yet commented on this.
Dispute over transparency over the supply of weapons to Israel
State Department spokesman Matt Miller said the Biden administration has followed procedures mandated by Congress to keep lawmakers informed and is informing lawmakers regularly, even when formal notification is not required by law.
He added that U.S. officials have informed Congress about arms transfers to Israel "more than 200 times" since Hamas launched a cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage.
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When asked about the flow of weapons to Israel, some lawmakers who sit on committees with national security oversight said the Biden administration needs to use its influence on the Israeli government.
"When you ask a lot of Americans about arms sales to Israel, they look at you like you're crazy, like you're saying, 'Why on earth would we send more bombs there?'" the Texas Democratic lawmaker said Joaquin Castro, member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, in an interview.
Israel's Rafah offensive: US lawmaker angry about Biden's arms deliveries
“These people have already fled from the north to the south, and now they're all crammed into a small part of the Gaza Strip, and they want to keep bombing them?” Castro said, referring to the planned Israeli offensive in Rafah, where More than a million displaced Palestinians have sought protection.
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip - like here in Rafah - continues to worsen.
© Mohammed talatene/dpa
US officials have warned the Israeli government against launching an offensive in Rafah without a plan to evacuate civilians.
But some Democrats fear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ignore Washington's demands as well as other U.S. demands to allow more food, water and medicine into the trapped enclave and to reduce the intensity of military action that has leveled entire neighborhoods and a large destroyed a number of houses across the strip.
Democrat Crow demands: no US deliveries to Israel if there is a likelihood of civilian casualties
Colorado Rep. Jason Crow (D-Democrat) said in an interview that the Biden administration should apply “existing standards” that say the United States “should not deliver weapons or equipment to places where there is a strong likelihood that they will.” be used to cause civilian casualties or damage civilian infrastructure.”
Crow, who is also a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, recently submitted a request to Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence.
In it, he requests information about “any restrictions” the government has put in place to ensure that Israel does not use US information to harm civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Weapons sold “typical of any modern military”
“I am concerned that the widespread use of artillery and air power in Gaza – and the resulting level of civilian casualties – is both a strategic and moral mistake,” wrote Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and in Afghanistan served.
A senior State Department official declined to provide the total number or cost of all U.S. weapons delivered to Israel since Oct. 7.
But he described them as a mix of new sales and “active FMS cases.”
“These are items typical of any modern military, even one as sophisticated as Israel’s,” the official said.
Weapons deliveries to Israel are mainly financed by US tax money
Due to the lack of publicly available information on U.S. arms sales to Israel, it remains unclear how many of the recent transfers amount to the routine delivery of U.S. security assistance to Israel, as opposed to the rapid replenishment of ammunition as a result of the bombing of Gaza.
Like most militaries, Israel's does not typically disclose data on its own spending on weapons.
In the first week of the war in Israel, the military said it had already dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza.
The lack of public information about arms shipments has led some weapons experts to push for changes.
“The arms transfer process intentionally lacks transparency,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.
The large number of deliveries since October 7, funded largely by the more than $3.3 billion in US taxpayer money that goes from Washington to Israel each year, “is something we as citizens of a democracy should know ", he said.
Republicans introduced legislation for further aid to Israel
Republicans have largely resisted efforts to limit U.S. arms sales to Israel, introducing legislation earlier this year that would give Israel an additional $17.6 billion on top of the $3.3 billion the U.S. provides annually would have asked.
The Biden administration also supports additional military aid for Israel, but a corresponding package has been delayed due to disputes in Congress over border security and aid to Ukraine.
It is clear that Washington is deeply involved in the conflict, even if it does not drop the ammunition itself or withdraw, said Konyndyk, the former government official.
“The US cannot, on the one hand, claim that Israel is a sovereign state that makes its own decisions and which we will not stab in the back, and on the other hand, deliver such a level of armament in such a short period of time and pretend that we are not direct involved."
To the author
John Hudson
is a reporter at
The Washington Post
covering the State Department and national security.
He was part of the team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Relations for its coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
He has reported from dozens of countries including Ukraine, China, Afghanistan, India and Belarus.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 7, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.