More arms shipments approved as Israel bombs Gaza and prepares for expected retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah.
The United States has approved another $20 billion worth of arms sales to Israel, despite concerns that Israeli forces routinely violate international law in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
The U.S. State Department announced on Tuesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had approved the arms sale, which includes dozens of fighter jets in addition to tank ammunition and air-to-air missiles.
“The United States is committed to Israel’s security, and it is in the U.S. national interest to help Israel develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” the State Department said.
The announcement came as Israel braces for expected retaliatory strikes from Iran and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. The killing of senior Hamas and Hezbollah officials had raised fears about the possibility of a regional war.
The United States has said it is working to prevent such an escalation. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Iranian retaliation could potentially be avoided if a ceasefire agreement is reached to end the war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children, razed entire neighborhoods and blocked humanitarian aid deliveries.
Critics have called on the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, saying they make the US complicit in the destruction of Gaza and represent a key leverage factor that the administration refuses to use in its efforts to reach a ceasefire to end the war that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted on continuing.
Even reports that Israeli forces are systematically violating international law and committing human rights abuses such as torture have failed to stop the flow of weapons, even though US law requires military units credibly accused of serious human rights violations to be withdrawn from the country.
In a speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said her country’s goal in the region was to “lower the temperature.”
“This starts with working out an agreement for an immediate ceasefire with hostage release in Gaza. We have to get this across the finish line,” she said in an address to the UN Security Council.
