10/5/2024–|Last updated: 10/5/202405:50 PM (Mecca time)
The United States’ suspension of sending an arms shipment to Israel, which continues its war on Gaza, revives the conversation about the main countries that supply weapons to Tel Aviv and those that stopped their military exports to it, with the escalation of protests and criticism of that war, in addition to cases and judicial pleadings before the International Court of Justice against Israel on charges of committing “genocide.” “Collective.”
United State
American officials said that the arms shipment that Washington suspended sending to Israel consists of 1,800 bombs, each weighing 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms), and 1,700 bombs, each weighing 500 pounds, which are weapons valued at tens of millions of dollars.
An American official said that the United States took the decision due to concerns about “the use of bombs weighing two thousand pounds and the extent of the impact they might have in crowded urban areas” such as Rafah.
But Senator Jim Risch, the most prominent Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in comments he made on May 9 that there are American weapons worth billions of dollars that will be on their way to Israel, including tank shells and ammunition that turns unguided bombs into precision weapons, despite the slow pace of procedures. Approval.
For his part, Axios reported on May 9 that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is expected to submit a very important report to Congress on Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, “which will stop short of concluding that they violate the conditions for the use of American weapons.”
In 2016, the United States and Israel signed a third ten-year memorandum of understanding covering the period from 2018 to 2028, which stipulates the provision of $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to purchase military equipment, and $5 billion for missile defense systems. Israel also received 69 percent of US military aid from 2019 to 2023, according to data issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in March.
Israel is continuing to purchase 75 F-35 aircraft, and received 36 of them until last year and paid for them with American assistance. In addition, the United States helped Israel develop and arm the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, which was developed after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Lebanese.
The United States has repeatedly sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel to help resupply interceptor missiles for the Iron Dome system, in addition to helping to finance the development of the Israeli “David’s Sling” system designed to shoot down missiles launched from a distance of 100 to 200 kilometers.
Germany
German defense exports to Israel increased by about tenfold to 326.5 million euros ($351 million) in 2023 compared to the previous year, as Berlin deals with requests for licenses for these exports as a priority after the Al-Aqsa flood carried out by Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza against Israel in October 7th.
But since the beginning of this year, as international criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza has mounted, the German government has apparently approved a much smaller number of arms exports to Israel. The Ministry of Economy said on April 10, in response to a query in parliament from a left-wing lawmaker, that until then the government had only authorized shipments worth 32,449 euros.
The German News Agency, which was the first to publish these data in 2023, reported that Germany mainly supplies Israel with components for air defense systems and communications equipment, and the exported weapons included 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons and 500,000 rounds of ammunition for automatic or semi-automatic firearms.
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute indicate that Germany provided about 30 percent of military aid to Israel in the period from 2019 to 2023.
Italy
A source at the Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed on May 9 that Italy had stopped granting new export approvals since the beginning of the Gaza war, indicating in a statement to Reuters that “Everything stopped… and the last orders were delivered in November.” November.
While Italian law prohibits the export of weapons to countries waging war and to those deemed to violate international human rights, Defense Minister Guido Crozito said last March that Italy continues to export weapons to Israel, but only according to previously signed orders after verifying that The weapons will not be used against civilians in the Gaza Strip.
In December alone, Italy sent weapons worth 1.3 million euros to Israel, three times more than the amount it sent in the same month of 2022.
Italy also provided 0.9 percent of the weapons imported by Israel between 2019 and 2023, including helicopters and naval artillery, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Britain
Unlike the United States, the British government does not grant weapons to Israel directly, but rather grants companies licenses to sell components that are mostly part of the American supply chain for parts such as the F-35 aircraft.
Last year, Britain granted export licenses to sell defense equipment to Israel worth at least 42 million pounds ($52.5 million), mainly for items including ammunition, drones, small arms ammunition, aircraft and helicopter components, and assault rifles.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Parliament yesterday, Thursday, that Britain applies one of the most stringent licensing monitoring systems in the world and periodically reviews recommendations regarding the extent of Israel’s compliance with humanitarian law, adding, “With regard to export licenses, the situation has not changed after the latest evaluation.”
For his part, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in a speech he delivered in London on Thursday that “the United States is, as a country, a major supplier of weapons to Israel. As for the United Kingdom, the government is not a supplier of weapons to Israel. We have a number of licenses, and I believe that our defense exports to Israel represents less than one percent of the total it imports, and this is a big difference.”
He added that arms sales would remain subject to a “strict mechanism” to avoid any contribution to violating international law.
Some leftist opposition parties called on the government to cancel export licenses in light of the sharp rise in the death toll in the Gaza Strip and to publish the legal advice on which the assessment of continued arms exports was based.
Canada and the Netherlands
Canada and the Netherlands stopped arms shipments to Israel this year due to fears that they might be used in ways that violate international humanitarian law, such as killing civilians and destroying residential areas in the Gaza Strip, against which Israel has continued its war since the seventh of last October, leaving tens of thousands martyred, wounded, and missing amid a difficult situation. The humanitarian situation is described as catastrophic, and a worsening famine looms over the besieged sector.
