US providing bunker buster bombs for Israel’s war on Gaza
The US has provided Israel with large bunker buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells, to help dislodge Hamas from Gaza, US officials said.
The surge of arms, including roughly 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, began shortly after the Oct. 7 attack and has continued in recent days, the officials said. The US hasn’t previously disclosed the total number of weapons it sent to Israel nor the transfer of 100 BLU-109, 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The airlift of hundreds of millions of dollars in munitions, primarily on C-17 military cargo planes flying from the US to Tel Aviv, shows the diplomatic challenge facing the Biden administration. The US is urging its top ally in the region to consider preventing large-scale civilian casualties while supplying many of the munitions deployed.
“I made clear that after a pause, it was imperative that Israel put in place clear protections for civilians, and for sustaining humanitarian assistance going forward,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Dubai on Friday.
Some security analysts say the weapons transfers could undercut the administration’s pressure on Israel to protect civilians.
Unlike in Ukraine where the US has published regular updates on some of the weapons it has provided to support Kiev’s fight against the Russian invasion, Washington has disclosed little about how many and what types of weapons it has sent to Israel during the current conflict. US officials say the lack of disclosure is a result partly of the fact that Israel’s weapons come through a different mechanism, including military sales. Israel also is one of the largest recipients of US military aid, receiving $3.8 billion every year.
The arsenal of artillery, bombs and other weapons and military gear have been used by the US in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Libya, among other places, usually to target large groups of gathered enemy forces. In Gaza, by contrast, Israel is battling fighters who are among civilians in dense urban environments.
“They are kind of the weapons of choice for the fights we had in Afghanistan and Syria in open, nonurban areas,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and officer in the Marine Corps and CIA. “The US may use them in more urban areas, but first it would do a lot of target analysis to make sure the attack was proportional and based on military necessity.”
President Biden initially expressed full support for Israel and its military campaign against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack, but the soaring civilian death toll in Gaza has caused the administration to shift in recent days.
More than 15,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the authorities in Gaza. The number doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Among the munitions the US has transferred to Israel are more than 5,000 Mk82 unguided or “dumb” bombs, more than 5,400 Mk84 2,000 pound warhead bombs, around 1,000 GBU-39 small diameter bombs, and approximately 3,000 JDAMs, which turn unguided bombs into guided “smart” bombs, according to an internal US government list of the weapons described to The Wall Street Journal by US officials.
The BLU-109 bunker buster carries a 2,000 pound warhead and is designed to penetrate a concrete shelter. The US military also used the bombs in the Persian Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan.