President Biden paused transporting bombs to Israel to prevent them from being used in the attack on the city of Rafah. Administration officials said 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs were being held and the administration was considering whether to defer future transfers.
The United States is by far the country largest arms supplier to Israel and expedited deliveries after the October 7 Hamas-led attack. It’s difficult to determine how much Israel received, but here’s a closer look at what we know.
What happened after October 7?
Since October 7, the United States has sent tens of thousands of weapons to Israel. For the most part, it has accelerated supplies that were already contractually committed, many of which were already approved by the National Assembly and the State Department for a long time, according to Bradley Bowman, a military expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“What the United States started doing almost immediately was sending in huge amounts of weapons,” said Mr. Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer.
As reported by Fund for the Defense of DemocraciesThere are so many arms shipments to Israel that a senior Pentagon official said the Defense Department sometimes struggles to find enough cargo planes to transport them.
Pete Nguyen, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email that recent support included precision-guided munitions, artillery shells, medical supplies and “other types of critical equipment.”
He added that “The United States has increased billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since the October 7 attack.”
How much has been made public?
Lawmakers and the media have recently criticized the lack of public information about the sale. The Ministry of Defense has so far only published two bulletins, on December 9 and 29, on approval of emergency military sales to Israel, while listing the majority of military equipment sent to Ukraine in one Regularly updated reports. flyer.
As stated in those news reports, aid sent to Israel from October 7 to December 29 included 52,229 M795 155 mm artillery shells, 30,000 M4 artillery shells, 4,792 M107 155 artillery shells mm and 13,981 M830A1 120 mm tank rounds.
