U.S. President Joe Biden and other White House officials are preparing to send additional bombs and other weapons to Israel even as the U.S. claims to be pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 16 February.
Citing current and former U.S. officials, the WSJ says the proposed arms delivery includes 500-pound MK-82 bombs, KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions that add precision guidance to bombs, and FMU-139 bomb fuses.
The value of the weapons deliveries is estimated to be “tens of millions of dollars.”
The proposed delivery is still being internally reviewed and must be approved by a congressional committee.
As of December 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has twice used emergency measures to bypass congressional review to send weapons to Israel.
Israeli warplanes wipe out an entire residential square in the Shujaeya neighborhood of Gaza City.#IsraelWarCrimes #IsraelTerroristeState #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/q9ozD7RSUv
— Palestine Info Center (@palinfoen) December 3, 2023
While publicly asking Israel to kill fewer Palestinians during its military operations, Blinken and Biden have been staunch supporters of Israel’s military, refusing to set any red lines on the use of U.S. weapons.
President Biden recently stated that the U.S. would take no action against Israel should it invade Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where over 1 million displaced are sheltering, despite warnings from aid agencies that such an invasion would be a “bloodbath.”
Israel has dropped tens of thousands of U.S. bombs, including hundreds of 2,000-pound BLU-109 bunker-buster bombs, on Gaza, destroying entire residential neighborhoods, creating 40-foot craters in crowded refugee camps, and killing dozens at one time.
Israel’s air and ground offensive on Gaza since 7 October has killed 28,775 people, mostly civilians, and displaced nearly all of its more than 2 million inhabitants from their homes.
The Israeli campaign is widely viewed as genocide, while Israeli leaders openly discuss their desire to ethnically cleanse the besieged enclave, annex it, and establish Jewish settlements on the remains of destroyed Palestinian cities.
Source: TheCradle.co
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