US okays $20b in arms sale to Israel
’2,100 babies’ under two killed in Gaza
The United States has approved another $20 billion in weapons transfers to Israel despite high civilian casualties from the regime’s strikes in the Gaza Strip during its 10 months military campaign in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The arms include more than 50 F-15 fighter jets, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, 120 mm tank ammunition and high explosive mortars and tactical vehicles, and come at a time of intense concern that Israel may become involved in a wider West Asia war.
However, the weapons are not expected to get to Israel anytime soon as there are contracts that will take years to fulfill. Much of what is being sold is to help Israel increase its military capability in the long term, the earliest systems being delivered under the contract aren’t expected until the 2026 timeframe.
“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” the State Department said in a release on the sale.
The Biden administration has had to balance its continued support for Israel with a growing number of calls from lawmakers and the US public to curb military support there due to the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza. It has curbed one delivery of 2,000-pound weapons amid continued airstrikes by Israel in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza.
US ‘unlimited support’
In a statement, the Palestinian Hamas resistance group said the move “comes within the framework of [the US’s] unlimited support and full adoption of the brutal aggressive behavior of this rogue entity [Israel] from international regulations and laws.”
“The continuation of the US administration’s financial and military support to the Zionist entity confirms once again that it is a full partner in the war of genocide, ethnic cleansing and brutal massacres against our Palestinian people,” Hamas’s statement added.
According to the Gaza health ministry, 39,965 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s attacks since October.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that out of nearly 17,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, about 2,100 were babies under the age of two.
“The number of Palestinian children – whether infants or children in general – killed by the Israeli army is horrifying, and the rate of their killing is unprecedented in the history of modern wars,” said the Geneva-based organization.
The regime’s atrocities are not limited to Gaza. It has been also killing Palestinians elsewhere in the occupied territories.
The regime has also killed more than 500 people in Lebanon since it began its military campaign in Gaza. Since October, the Israeli occupation army has been exchanging fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group which has conducted military operations against the regime’s military targets to support Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip.