The State Department has informally notified Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale to support Israel’s long-term security by replenishing critical ammunition stockpiles and air defense capabilities, it confirmed to CBS Information on Saturday. a U.S. official familiar with the details.
President Biden has made clear that Israel has the right to defend its citizens as the American ally presses forward with his war against Hamas in Gaza.
Some of the weapons in the package could be shipped through current U.S. stockpiles, but most would take one to several years to deliver, the U.S. official said.
OMAR AL-QATTA/AFP via Getty Photographs
The sale includes medium-range air-to-air missiles to help Israel defend against aerial threats, 155mm artillery shells for long-range targets, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, 500-pound bombs and more.
News of the gun sale was first reported by Axios.
The weapons package would add to a record of at least $17.9 billion in military aid that the United States has provided to Israel since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 launched the war.
The Biden administration has faced criticism over rising deaths of Palestinian civilians. There have been demonstrations on university campuses and failed efforts in Congress by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, and some Democrats to block sales of offensive weapons to Israel.
USA stopped a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in May over concerns about civilian casualties if bombs were used during an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The Biden administration has demanded that Israel increase humanitarian aid to the enclave. But in November, citing limited progress, he refused to limit arms transfers, as he threatened to do if the situation did not improve.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AP
In recent days, Israel has been carrying out airstrikes in Gaza that have killed dozens of people, adding to the tens of thousands of deaths since the war began more than a year ago.
The Israeli military said on Friday it had attacked dozens of Hamas assembly points and command centers across Gaza. Israel’s military says it only attacks militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, many of them multiple times. Winter has already arrivedand hundreds of thousands take refuge in tents near the sea.
The casual notice to Congress is not the final notification before a sale. Now leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can review the package.
Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.
