US to Deliver more Arms, Amunitions to Israel

Washington, MINA – The United States is planning to deliver more arms and bombs to Israel, despite the occupation’s plans to launch a ground invasion on Gaza’s southern area of Rafah where much of the strip’s civilian population is taking shelter.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal this week, which cited unnamed US officials, Washington is set to send a number of arms and munitions to Tel Aviv in the coming weeks, in deliveries that reportedly include around a thousand MK-82 500-pound (227kg) bombs and a thousand KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) which turn unguided munitions into precision-guided bombs as well as possibly FMU-139 bomb fuses.

The entire shipment, which is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars, will be paid from the USs’ vast military aid to Israel. It comes after an assessment of the proposed arms transfer drafted by the US embassy in Israel, cited by the report as saying that Israeli government has requested “rapid acquisition of these items for the defence of Israel against continued and emerging regional threats”.

That assessment also reportedly dismissed concerns over human rights violations and war crimes to be committed by occupation forces, claiming that “Israel takes effective action to prevent gross violations of human rights and to hold security forces responsible that violate those rights”

With the US having provided around 21,000 precision-guided munitions to Israel since the start of the war in October, according to the WSJ report, the remaining weapons in the hands of Israeli forces are enough to sustain at least 19 more weeks of bombing the Gaza Strip and its population.

The planned delivery comes despite Tel Aviv’s plan to launch a ground operation and bombardment in Gaza’s southern area of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians have been taking shelter over the months since Israeli forces ordered them to flee there with guarantees of safety.

It even comes despite the US government – as well as other Western governments – calling on Israel not to proceed with its planned operation, with President Joe Biden having told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there “has to be a temporary ceasefire” in Gaza and warning him not to move into Rafah without a “credible and executable plan” to protect Palestinians sheltering there.

The reported delivery of more US weapons and munitions to Israel further proves to many, however, that Washington is not serious in its warnings to Tel Aviv, and that as has already reportedly been confirmed by US officials, it will not exact any severe or tangible punishments against the occupation state even if it does go ahead with the operation. (T/RE1/P2)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)