The Biden administration released half of a shipment of heavy bombs it had withheld from Israel since May over concerns the Israeli army would use them on densely populated areas of Gaza, a US official told The Times of Israel.
In May, the White House announced a decision to withhold a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, with US President Joe Biden threatening to freeze additional weapons if Israel launched a major military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah where over one million Palestinians were sheltering at the time. Israel subsequently tailored its operations to account for the administration’s concerns of mass-civilian casualties.
Last month, Netanyahu publicly claimed that the US had adopted a broader policy of withholding arms shipments from Israel, infuriating the Biden administration, and setting back efforts to at least partially release the withheld shipment of heavy bombs.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant managed to resolve some of the disagreements during his visit to Washington in late June, an Israeli official said.
Netanyahu claimed that he only went public with the disagreement after months of failed efforts to resolve the issue privately.
“We’ve been clear that our concern has been on the end-use of the 2,000 pound bombs, particularly in advance of Israel’s Rafah campaign, which they have announced they are concluding,” the US official said.
“Because of how these shipments are put together, other munitions may sometimes be co-mingled. That’s what happened here with the 500 pound bombs.”
“Since our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000 pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza, the 500-lb bombs are moving forward as part of the usual process,” the US official added.
