US floods arms into Israel despite growing alarm on war
Extent of lethal assistance not disclosed before
The United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms, and other lethal aid to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, US officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing.
The triple-digit figure, not previously reported, is the latest indication of Washington’s extensive involvement in the polarizing five-month conflict even as top US officials and lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel’s military tactics in a campaign that has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells. Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority.
But in the case of the 100 other transactions, known in government-speak as Foreign Military Sales or FMS, the weapon transfers were processed without any public debate because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress, according to US officials and lawmakers who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.
Taken together, the weapons packages amount to a massive transfer of firepower at a time when senior US officials have complained that Israeli officials have fallen short on their appeals to limit civilian casualties, allow more aid into Gaza, and refrain from rhetoric calling for the permanent displacement of Palestinians.
“That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of US support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and current president of Refugees International.
State Department spokesman Matt Miller said the Biden administration has “followed the procedures Congress itself has specified to keep members wellinformed and regularly briefs members even when formal notification is not a legal requirement.”
He added that US officials have “engaged Congress” on arms transfers to Israel “more than 200 times” since Hamas launched its attack into Israel that killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage.
When asked about the surge of weapons into Israel, some US lawmakers who sit on committees with oversight of national security said the Biden administration must exercise its leverage over the government of Israel.
“You ask a lot of Americans about arm transfers to Israel right now, and they look at you like you’re crazy, like, ‘why in the world would we be sending more bombs over there?’” Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who’s a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, said.
“These people already fled from the north to the south, and now they’re all huddled in a small piece of Gaza, and you’re going to continue to bombard them?” Castro said, referring to Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter.
US officials have warned the Israeli government against waging an offensive in Rafah without a plan to evacuate civilians. But some Democrats worry that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will disregard Washington’s pleas as he has other US demands to allow more food, water, and medicine into the enclave, and to dial back the intensity of a military campaign that has destroyed huge numbers of homes across the strip.
Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, said that the Biden administration should apply “existing standards” stipulating that the US “shouldn’t transfer arms or equipment to places where it’s reasonably likely that those will be used to inflict civilian casualties, or to harm civilian infrastructure.”
Crow, also a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, recently petitioned Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines seeking information on “any restrictions” that the US had put in place to ensure Israel was not using US intelligence to harm civilians or civilian infrastructure.
“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 error,” wrote Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.