US ‘quietly’ made over 100 weapons sales to ‘israel’ during Gaza war: Report
A new report has revealed that the United States has quietly authorized over 100 separate weapons sales to Israel since the start of the Gaza war in early October, despite mounting alarm over the occupying regime’s genocidal campaign against the besieged territory.
US officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing that the sales include thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The report comes as only two approved weapons sales authorized by US President Joe Biden had been made public so far but the latest triple-digit figure has not been previously reported.
The Biden administration bypassed Congress to initiate $106 million in sales of tanks ammunition as well as $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells.
However, the 100 other weapons transfers were processed without any public debate because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and current president of Refugees International, said these transactions are “an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of US support.”
Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, also noted, “The arms transfer process lacks transparency by design.”
The vast number of transfers since early October, largely financed by the more than $3.3 billion in US taxpayer funds Washington provides to Israel every year, “is something we deserve to know as citizens of a democracy,” he said.
Israel launched the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.
Since then, the United States has supplied the Tel Aviv regime with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment, and used its veto power against all United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has so far killed more than 30,700 people, most of them women and children.
