United States, main supplier of weapons to Israel

Since the beginning of the war Israel against the Islamist movement Hamas in October, USA has approved arms sales to its ally for tens of millions of dollars, in line with the enormous military aid it has provided for decades.

Here is what US military assistance to Israel consists of and how it is delivered.

“Emergency” sales

In the last six months of war, the United States has made public two sales to Israel through the so-called procedure of “emergency”a procedure that allows direct shipping, bypassing a process in Congress that takes 30 days.

In early December, the US government authorized the sale of 13,981 120mm shells for US$106 million. This artillery ammunition is used in particular by the Merkava battle tanks participating in the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In late December, Washington authorized another “urgent” sale of some 57,000 155mm shells and related equipment, for a total of $147.5 million. These weapons came from US military stocks.

Gun sales over a certain amount must be made public in the United States, unlike smaller transactions.

According to the Washington Post, President Biden’s administration has approved more than 100 non-public military sales since the October 7 attack, including many artillery munitions.

Stable military aid

These two “urgent” sales to Israel are in addition to free and regular aid from the United States, which supplies its ally with some of its most modern weapons.

Since the founding of the country in 1948, Washington has given Israel about US$130 billion, according to official figures, an amount that adjusts to about $300 billion if inflation is taken into account.

Israel is like that “the largest recipient in cumulative terms” American foreign aid “since World War II”according to a recent Congressional report, which indicates that this assistance also includes “an important financial aid” between 1971 and 2007.

Since then, aid has been almost exclusively military, worth more than $3.5 billion annually under multi-year agreements, the current one running through 2028.

“The United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 fighter jet.”says the US State Department. It is also the United States that partially finances and supplies the equipment of the “Iron Dome”, Israel’s effective and expensive shield against rockets fired from Gaza or Lebanon.

US aid is essentially conditional on the purchase of equipment from US manufacturers.

The law in the United States prohibits the government from supplying weapons to countries responsible for “flagrant violations of human rights”something that is remembered at a time when some countries have expressed concern about the very high human cost of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

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