Washington supplied Israel with 100 bunker-busting bombs used in an attack on Jabalia that killed 100 Palestinians
The Wall Street Journal
🔴 US officials said that the United States has supplied Israel with large bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells, to help dislodge Hamas from Gaza.
🔴 Officials said that the increase in weapons, including almost 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, began shortly after the October 7 attack and has continued in recent days. The United States has not previously disclosed the total number of weapons it has sent to Israel nor the transfer of 100 BLU-109 bombs weighing 2,000 pounds.
🔴 The airlift of hundreds of millions of dollars of munitions, on C-17 military cargo planes flying from the United States to Tel Aviv, shows the diplomatic challenge facing the Biden administration. The United States is urging its largest ally in the region to consider the Prevention of large-scale civilian casualties with the provision of numerous munitions.
🔴 "I have made it clear that after a temporary pause, it is necessary for Israel to establish clear protection for civilians, and to continue to provide humanitarian assistance,"Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken said in Dubai on Friday.
🔴 Some security analysts say the arms transfers could undermine the administration's pressure on Israel to protect civilians.
🔴 It seems inconsistent with the stated advice of Secretary Blinken and others to use bombs of smaller diameter, "said Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the nonprofit International Crisis Group, lawyer and former adviser to the State Department.
🔴 Unlike Ukraine where the United States has published regular updates on some of the weapons it has provided to support Kiev's fight against the Russian invasion, Washington has revealed little about the number and types of weapons it has sent to Israel during the current conflict. American officials say that the lack of disclosure is partly a consequence of the fact that Israel's weapons come through a different mechanism, including military sales. Israel is also one of the largest recipients of US military aid, receiving 3.8 billion dollars every year.
🔴 Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza on Friday after the collapse of negotiations to extend the week-long ceasefire. Israeli officials have repeatedly said that they plan to resume the war at the end of the truce, which began on November 24 with an agreement that released dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
🔴 The United States has used the arsenal of artillery, bombs, other weapons and military equipment in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Libya, among other places, usually to target large groups of assembled enemy troops. In Gaza, by contrast, Israel is fighting militants who are among civilians in dense urban environments.
🔴 It is a kind of weapon of choice for the battles we fought in Afghanistan and Syria in open, non-urban areas, "said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense and officer in the Marine Corps and CIA. "The United States may use them in more urban areas, but first it will do a lot of target analysis to make sure the attack was proportionate and based on military necessity."
🔴 The Israeli Prime Minister's office and the Ministry of defense did not respond to a request for comment on the arms transfers. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
🔴 President Biden initially expressed his full support for Israel and its military campaign to destroy Hamas after the October 7 attack, but the high civilian death toll in Gaza caused the administration to shift in recent days.
🔴 The IDF says that it is already taking the necessary precautions to protect civilians, although in the early days of the war its Air Force also said that its strikes caused "maximum damage". Israeli officials have also said that they have a limited capability for precision strikes because its forces are stretched.
🔴 Among the munitions transferred by the United States to Israel are more than 5,000 unguided or "non-smart" Mk82 bombs, more than 5,400 2,000-pound Mk84 warhead bombs, about 1,000 small-diameter GBU-39 bombs, and about 3,000 JDAM bombs, which turn unguided bombs into guided "smart" bombs, according to an internal US government list of weapons disclosed by US officials to the Wall Street Journal.
🔴 The BLU-109 bomb carries a 2000-pound warhead and is designed to penetrate a concrete shelter. The US military also used bombs in the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan.
العسك military analysts say that the transfer of large bombs to Israel illustrates the options facing the Israeli army as it tries to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, a small densely populated strip of territory with more than two million Palestinians. Israel urged more than a million civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip to give its army a freer hand there, but tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians remained in the area.
🔴 In Gaza, the military wing of Hamas also uses an extensive network of underground tunnels, which Israel could try to hit with bunker destroyers, analysts say. However, the tunnels are located under the urban landscape of Gaza from residential buildings, schools, hospitals and other civilian buildings.
🔴 US officials say that Israel used a US-supplied bomb with a large payload in one of the bloodiest strikes of the entire war, an attack that leveled a residential block in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, killing more than 100 people. Israel said the strike killed a Hamas leader.
🔴 "There is probably a legitimate use of these objects, to smash underground bunkers,"said finokin, a lawyer and former adviser at the State Department. "The problem is that there is a huge refugee camp with hundreds of thousands of civilians on top of those tunnels when the bomb falls."You need to take into account the harm caused to civilians."
🔴 The United States also sent to Israel approximately 57,000 155 mm artillery shells - the main ammunition provided by the United States to Ukraine since the 2022 Russian invasion - along with thousands of other artillery shells and various small arms.
🔴 Even before the start of the war in Gaza, 155 mm artillery rounds were in such short supply that the United States reached the depth of its global stocks and turned to its allies South Korea and Japan, among other countries, to provide more to Ukraine.
🔴 The UN, humanitarian agencies and the Arab countries that mediated the negotiations between the two sides have called for a permanent ceasefire. The Biden administration rejected calls for a long-term ceasefire and expressed support for Israel's war to eventually uproot Hamas from power in Gaza.
