This is the first time, since the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, that the United States has questioned its arms deliveries to the IDF. On Wednesday, May 8, US President Joe Biden affirmed that he would refuse to deliver certain artillery munitions to Israel in the event of a large-scale invasion in the population centers of the town of Rafah, in the south of the Strip. Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians, the majority displaced, are crowded together.
Recently, the US government also paused the shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel. “We will not deliver the weapons and artillery shells that have been used” so far in the cities, Joe Biden continued, assuming that civilians may have been killed in Gaza “because of these bombs”.
According to Peter Baker of New York Times, it is “an important inflection point” in 76 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel, without one being able to speak of “a breaking point”. Indeed, “the Biden administration is still authorizing most other weapons to be sent to Israel and officials have stressed that no final decision has been made on sending these bombs.”
But these doubts are a reflection of the growing pressure felt by Joe Biden’s government regarding the sending of American weapons and their use by Israel: “The war is a brake on its electoral campaign, on the unity of the Democratic Party and the position of the United States in the world”, comments Cliff Kupchan, of the risk analysis firm Eurasia Group, to from the New York newspaper.
Crucial military support
The Pentagon is indeed a major ally for the IDF. Since World War II, Israel has been “the largest recipient” of U.S. foreign aid, according to a recent report by the Congress. Since the country’s founding in 1948, Washington has given approximately $159 billion to Israel according to official figures, of which $130 billion has been spent on defense and armaments. In 2016, Barack Obama notably signed an agreement to send $3.8 billion in military aid per year.
“The United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35,” according to the US State Department. It is also the Americans who partly finance and supply the equipment for the “Iron Dome”, Israel’s effective and very expensive shield against rockets fired from Gaza or Lebanon, lists Agence France Presse.
If the quantity of weapons supplied by the United States to Israel since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023 is not communicated, it amounts to billions of dollars according to Pete Nguyen, a spokesperson for the Pentagon questioned by THE New York Times. Recent deliveries included “precision-guided munitions, artillery munitions, medical supplies and other categories of essential equipment.” Most concerned orders already made and validated by Congress and the State Department, and which were accelerated.
Secret sales
But the details of the vast majority of sales are not actually public. As noted by Washington Post, more than 100 operations have been approved by President Joe Biden’s administration since the October 7 attack, including many artillery munitions. But below a certain amount, these transactions do not have to be communicated by the United States. Only a few emergency sales were publicized, such as those, in December, of 13,981 120 mm shells for an amount of $106 million, as well as 57,000 155 mm shells and related equipment, for a total of 147 .5 million dollars. American aid is essentially conditional on the purchase of equipment from American manufacturers.
“This is an extraordinary number of sales in a fairly short period of time, strongly suggesting that the Israeli campaign would not be viable without this level of American support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior administration official. Biden, at Washington Post. In addition, the United States recently approved, on April 20, new aid of $13 billion in military assistance intended for the IDF.
Fears about the use of these weapons
But while some countries are concerned about the very heavy human toll of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, American law prohibits the federal state from providing weapons to countries responsible for “flagrant violations of human rights”. Among the munitions whose shipment has been paused in recent days are 1,800 2,000 pound (907 kilo) bombs and 1,700 500 pound (227 kilo) bombs, which are particularly devastating.
For example, a 2,000 pound bomb can create a crater 15 meters in diameter and 5 meters deep. According to The Guardianbased on UN experts, it was a bomb of the same caliber that hit the Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than a hundred people, according to Hamas.
Numerous NGOs as well as American security officials have thus alerted the American government on several occasions to violations of international humanitarian rights committed by the Israeli army, probably with American weapons. In the coming days, the State Department must deliver a report to Congress in order to judge whether the use of American weapons by Israel does not violate American or international law, after the publication by Joe Biden in February of a memorandum on national security (known as NSM-20), under pressure from elected Democrats.
A non-binding memorandum
In a prior internal report, consulted by Reuters, several senior US officials have already told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find Israel’s guarantees on these uses “credible or reliable”. Officials pointed out in particular “repeated strikes on protected sites and civilian infrastructure; unacceptable levels of civilian damage […] and killing aid workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate.”
In a memo sent to the US executive on April 29, Amnesty International also denounced the use of several American-made munitions (notably by Boeing) used in strikes against civilian homes, as well as Israel’s systematic and arbitrary refusal to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. “The evidence is clear and overwhelming […] the United States must immediately suspend any transfer of arms to the Israeli government,” denounced Amanda Klasing, one of the NGO’s spokespersons in the United States.
The memorandum does not, however, impose new legal requirements, other than written assurances from arms-buying countries that they are not violating international law. In the event that Israel is implicated in the report, Joe Biden could suspend or impose conditions on American arms transfers, while the American political class is torn apart on the issue.