The three-digit figure, which has not been previously announced, is the latest sign of Washington's intensifying involvement in the polarizing five-month-old conflict even as senior US officials and lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel's military tactics in a campaign that has resulted in two deaths. More than 100 people. 30 thousand Palestinians, according to the health authorities in Gaza.
Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the beginning of the conflict: $106 million in tank ammunition and $147.5 million in components needed to make 155 mm shells. These sales have invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking emergency authority.
But in the case of the other 100 transactions, known in government parlance as Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, the arms transfers were processed without any public debate because each fell under a specific dollar amount that required the executive branch to notify Congress individually. According to US officials and lawmakers who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.
Taken together, the arms packages amount to a massive transfer of firepower at a time when senior US officials have complained that Israeli officials have failed to heed their calls to limit civilian casualties, allow more aid into Gaza, and refrain from rhetoric calling for a permanent halt. For bombing. Displacement of Palestinians.
“This is an extraordinary number of sales over a very short period of time, which strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign will not be sustainable without this level of American support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former and current senior Biden administration official. President of the International Refugee Organization.
State Department spokesman Matt Miller said the Biden administration “followed procedures established by Congress itself to keep members well-informed and brief members regularly even when formal notification is not a legal requirement.”
He added that US officials had “contacted Congress” about transferring weapons 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 hostages.
When asked about the flow of weapons to Israel, some American lawmakers who participate in committees overseeing national security said that the Biden administration should exercise its influence over the Israeli government.
“You ask a lot of Americans about arms transfers to Israel right now, and they look at you like you're crazy, like, 'Why in the world are we sending more bombs there?'” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), a member of the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees Foreign Ministry in the House of Representatives, in an interview. “
“These people have already fled from north to south, and now they are all gathered in a small piece of Gaza, and you will continue to bomb them?” Castro said in reference to the planned Israeli attack in Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have taken refuge.
American officials warned the Israeli government against launching an attack in Rafah without a plan to evacuate civilians. But some Democrats worry that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ignore Washington's pleas because he has other US demands to allow more food, water and medicine into the closed enclave, and to tone down the military campaign that has leveled and destroyed entire neighborhoods of the city. Large numbers of homes throughout the sector.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) said in an interview that the Biden administration should apply “existing standards” that “the United States should not transfer weapons or equipment to places where they are reasonably likely to be used to do harm.” Civilian casualties, or damage to civilian infrastructure.”
Crowe, who is also a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, recently petitioned Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, for information about “any restrictions” the administration has put in place to ensure that Israel does not use U.S. intelligence to harm civilians. Or civil infrastructure
“I am concerned that the widespread use of artillery and air power in Gaza — and the resulting level of civilian casualties — is a strategic and moral mistake,” wrote Crow, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A senior State Department official declined to provide the total number or cost of all US weapons transferred to Israel since October 7, but described them as a combination of new sales and “active foreign military arms cases.”
“These are typical elements for any modern army, including one as advanced as the Israeli army,” the official said.
The scarcity of publicly available information on US arms sales to Israel does not make it clear how much of the recent transfers amount to the routine supply of US security assistance to Israel compared to the rapid replenishment of munitions as a result of the Gaza bombing.
Israel, like most armies, does not routinely disclose data on its arms spending, but in the first week of the war it said it dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza. Konyndyk, the former Biden administration official, said that as the conflict continues, Israel's reliance on the United States to continue the campaign has become clearer than ever.
He added: “The United States cannot confirm, on the one hand, that Israel is a sovereign state and makes its own decisions, and we will not question it, and on the other hand, transfer this level of armament in such a short time.” “We act in a way as if we are not directly involved,” he said.
