The planned delivery of bombs and other munitions comes as President Biden pushes for a truce in Israel’s war on Gaza.
The United States is preparing to send more bombs and other weapons to Israel even as it pushes for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza and has said it opposes Tel’s plans Aviv of a ground invasion in southern Rafah, where more than half of the enclave’s displaced population are located. trap.
The proposed weapons delivery includes approximately a thousand 500-pound (227 kg) MK-82 bombs and KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) that transform unguided munitions into precision-guided bombs, a The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.
The United States is also planning to send FMU-139 bomb detonators, with a total value estimated at tens of millions of dollars, which will be financed through American military aid to Israel.
The report cites an assessment of the arms transfer project prepared by the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which said the Israeli government requested “rapid acquisition of these items for the defense of Israel against persistent and emerging regional threats.”
The assessment also rejects potential human rights concerns, saying that “Israel takes effective measures to prevent gross violations of human rights and to hold accountable security forces that violate those rights.” .
US President Joe Biden’s administration has so far twice bypassed Congress to urgently send bombs and other munitions to Israel, in the midst of a war that has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, to most children and women, and left tens of thousands injured or missing.
According to the WSJ, the United States has supplied approximately 21,000 precision-guided munitions to Israel since the war began last October. He said the remaining weapons were enough to sustain 19 weeks of bombardment on Gaza, but that would be reduced to a few days if Israel also launched a full attack on Lebanon, where it is engaged in border fighting with Hezbollah.
On Friday, Biden said he had repeatedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there “needs to be a temporary ceasefire” in Gaza during “extensive” conversations this week.
Facing widespread international condemnation, Israel insisted it would soon launch a ground invasion of Rafah, the southernmost town in the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt. It is where about 1.4 million of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents were forcibly displaced during Israeli attacks across Gaza during the four-month conflict.
While the Biden administration maintains that an Israeli incursion into the densely populated city would be a “disaster,” it has said such an operation would not result in tangible consequences, such as a freeze on U.S. arms transfers.
Biden said he had warned Netanyahu against continuing a military operation in Rafah without a “credible and enforceable plan” to protect Palestinians sheltering there.
“I anticipate, I hope, that the Israelis will not carry out a massive ground invasion (of Rafah) in the meantime. So, I expect that won’t happen,” Biden said.
Reporting from Washington, DC, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Kimberly Halkett said it was “unclear” whether Netanyahu was listening to Biden.
“Historically, this is not the case, especially when it comes to American warnings about how to conduct the Israeli military campaign,” Halkett said.
Washington, some other allies of Israel, besides the United Nations and many rights groups, have said that an attack on Rafah, given the dire humanitarian situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, would prove catastrophic.
Netanyahu ordered the military to develop plans to evacuate civilians, but senior U.N. officials said there was no feasible way to move people from the area and he would not There was no longer any safe place in Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country was “carefully planning” its ground invasion of Rafah, and Netanyahu vowed Friday morning to reject “international dictates” on a long-term resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.