By Iclal Turan
WASHINGTON (AA) - The US has quietly approved more than 100 weapons sales to Israel since the start of its war on Gaza last October, including thousands of bombs, a report said Wednesday.
The Washington Post, citing US officials and lawmakers, reported that administration officials told members of Congress in a classified briefing that the sales involved “thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid.”
Some of the weapons transfers were processed without public debate “because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress,” it reported.
However, the Biden administration is still seeking to send $14 billion worth of additional military aid to Israel and is awaiting approval from the US House of Representatives.
The report came amid growing concern over the US’s ongoing military assistance to Israel amid indications that the Israelis might not be using the US-provided weapons in accordance with the laws of war.
The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits the US from providing aid to any country "when it is made known to the President that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”
Section 620I of the act does contain an exception that allows a president to continue assistance if he or she formally determines that it is in the US's national security interests to do so.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday that Israeli ministers are preventing aid deliveries from entering the besieged Gaza Strip, raising questions about the legality of continued US assistance to Israel.
"I will say some of the obstacles that we have seen from the Israeli political establishment: you have seen ministers in the Israeli government block the release of flour from the port at Ashdod. You have seen ministers of the Israeli government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in to Karem Shalom," Miller told reporters, referring to a key border crossing between Israel and Gaza.
Asked how this relates to the Foreign Assistance Act, he said: "We have not made an assessment that Israel is in breach of any such statutory requirements at this time."
The Biden administration is under criticism from progressive Democrats and Muslim and Arab Americans in the country and from abroad over his “unwavering” support for Israel's war on Gaza, where Israeli attacks have now killed more than 30,000 Palestinians as famine is looming.
Biden, who has reaffirmed multiple times Washington’s unwavering support for Israel’s “right to defend itself” after last year’s Oct. 7 attacks by the Palestinian group Hamas, has changed his tone recently, gradually ratcheting up pressure on Tel Aviv to take some measures to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians and allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv said killed nearly 1,200 people.
More than 30,700 Palestinians have since been killed and over 72,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.