Biden OKs $680m Israel arms sale despite new Gaza ceasefire push: Reports
Approval comes despite US promise to renew efforts on long-elusive Gaza ceasefire after Israel-Hezbollah truce.Palestinian children walk at the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]
The administration of United States President Joe Biden is reported to have provisionally approved a $680m arms package to Israel, even as it asserts that it is pushing for peace in the Middle East.
Reports of the arms deal on Wednesday come a day after Biden announced a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and promised to renew efforts to reach a similar agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza – one he has repeatedly promised but failed to deliver.
The arms package had been in the works for months and had been previewed by congressional committees in September and submitted for wider review in October, an unnamed US official told the Reuters news agency, which confirmed an earlier report by the Financial Times on Biden’s provisional approval.
The latest delivery will include hundreds of small-diameter bombs and thousands of joint direct attack munition kits (JDAMs), both news organisations reported. JDAMs convert “dumb” bombs into precision-guided weapons.
The Biden administration has not confirmed the reports, the timing of which highlights the juxtaposition of the US position on the Middle East conflict – on the one hand facilitating ceasefire negotiations while on the other hand selling billions of dollars of munitions to Israel as it kills tens of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese.
On Tuesday, Biden – who has consistently supported Israel and portrays US arms sales to Israel as essential support for an ally – held an address at the White House announcing that a US-brokered ceasefire that would see Israel withdraw from Lebanon within 60 days had been reached. That deal went into effect early on Wednesday.
During the address, Biden promised to again seek an end to the fighting that has raged in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
For months, previous attempts by Washington to broker a deal have come up short with critics accusing Washington of failing to exert its most meaningful leverage – withholding some of the billions of dollars in arms it provides to Israel.
To date, Israel has killed at least 44,282 Palestinians in Gaza since the war began when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed at least 1,139 people. Israeli forces have killed more than 3,800 people in Lebanon in the past 13 months.
“Over the coming days, the United States will make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the hostages released and the end to the war without Hamas in power – that it becomes possible,” Biden said.
