According to US President Joe Biden, Israel used US-supplied bombs in attacks that killed Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. According to the AP and Reuters agencies, Biden said this in an interview with CNN on Wednesday (early this morning).
In recent days, according to the media, the US administration has suspended the delivery of bombs, roughly half of which are powerful bombs weighing around one ton. According to Biden, the US will not supply Israel with more bombs or artillery ammunition, which Israel has used in the Gaza Strip in recent months, if his government decides to expand the invasion to the densely populated city of Rafah in the south of the area, where Israel says the last major groups of Hamas are hiding.
In that case, according to Biden, the US would only supply defensive ammunition, for example to Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
“I’ve made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t yet — I’m not going to supply weapons that have been used in Rafah in the past, that have been used in the cities,” CNN quoted the US president as saying.
The agencies note that today’s Biden’s statements are the strongest expression of disapproval of Israel’s way of conducting the war against the Palestinian movement Hamas since the beginning of the current war in the Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip since last October, when Hamas committed bloody terrorist attacks in southern Israel and ignited the conflict, 34,844 Palestinians have died as a result of the fighting. This is according to data from the health authorities in Gaza on Wednesday; the numbers include Hamas fighters as well as civilians, who are the majority.
The now-suspended supply of US ammunition, according to an unnamed Reuters source, includes 1,800 bombs weighing 900 kilograms and 1,700 bombs weighing 225 kilograms. The first-mentioned, heavier bombs are, according to an investigation by The New York Times (NYT) at the end of last year, some of the “most destructive” conventional weapons in the arsenals of Western armies. In at least the first six weeks of operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel regularly used them in populated areas, including those it had previously designated as safe for Palestinian civilians, according to the NYT.
“Civilians in Gaza have been dying as a result of (the explosions of) these bombs and other means that (the Israelis) are using in populated areas,” Biden said. according to CNN, he referred to the 900-kilogram bombs in question.
“We are currently reassessing some security assistance deliveries in the short term in the context of what is happening in Rafah,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
Behind the scenes, Israeli officials expressed strong indignation to the Americans at their move, US media reported, citing their sources. They express concern that the reduction of military support will jeopardize the negotiations for the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza. In public statements, the Israelis downplayed the news of the halted delivery of bombs.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said on Thursday, according to AFP, that US President Joe Biden’s threat that the United States would stop the supply of some weapons to Israel in the event of a major offensive in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, was “a big disappointment.”
“It’s a very harsh statement that’s hard to hear and a disappointment on the part of a president we’ve been grateful to since the beginning of the war. “It’s very clear that any pressure on Israel, any restrictions that are put on it, even by close allies who care about our interests, is interpreted by our enemies and gives them hope,” he said.
Republican congressmen expressed their disapproval of the move by the Democratic President Biden’s administration. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell sent a letter to Biden criticizing the suspension. They say the move raises the question of whether the president’s commitment to Israel’s security really is as bulletproof as Biden has previously claimed.
