US President Joe Biden's administration has approved more than $20 billion worth of new arms sales to Israel, rejecting pressure to halt weapons shipments because of the number of casualties in Gaza.
The sale comes at a time when Biden is pushing for Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire after 10 months of bloodshed, even though it will take years to get the weapons to Israel.
In a notification to Congress, the State Department said it had approved the sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets to Israel for $18.82 billion.
Israel will also purchase nearly 33,000 tank charges, up to 50,000 explosive mortars and new military trucks.
The F-15s, whose delivery will begin in 2029, will modernize Israel's current fleet and include radar and secure communications equipment.
"The United States is committed to Israel's security, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to help Israel develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability," the State Department said in its announcement of the F-15s, which are manufactured by Boeing.
Regarding the tank charges, the United States said the sale "will enhance Israel's ability to meet current and future enemy threats, strengthen its homeland defenses, and serve as a deterrent to regional threats."
The US Congress can block arms sales, but the process is difficult.
Human rights groups and some leftist members of Biden's Democratic Party have called on the administration to restrict or halt arms sales to Israel, expressing outrage at civilian casualties in the Gaza conflict. Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department last year in protest over the Gaza policy, said Israel had given the United States no reason to believe it was giving up its "abhorrent brutality."
"Allowing billions of dollars in new arms transfers effectively gives Israel carte blanche to continue its atrocities in Gaza and escalate the conflict in Lebanon," said Paul, who now works with the Middle East rights group Dawn.
In May, Biden froze a shipment to Israel that included 2,000-pound bombs, warning against a massive attack on the southern Gaza town of Rafah, home to a huge number of displaced Palestinians. But the administration said it had not stopped other weapons and dismissed complaints in June by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States was delaying its military supplies to Tel Aviv. | BGNES
