An Israeli soldier carries a tank shell near the Gaza border on Oct. 14, 2023. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Israel has received more U.S. military aid — and more U.S. aid of any type — than any other country since World War II.
That assistance has long been a matter of ironclad, bipartisan near-consensus. But in recent months, it has come under mounting scrutiny, including from some Democratic legislators, amid the emergence of rifts between the United States and Israel over Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza — in which U.S.-provided weapons are in widespread use.
President Biden stated this week that he would halt a shipment of U.S. offensive weapons to Israel — which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza — if it moves ahead with a long-planned ground invasion of the city of Rafah.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically,” Biden told CNN in an interview.
He said the United States would continue to provide Israel with defensive weapons, including those for the Iron Dome missile defense system so it can protect itself from attacks, but underscored that supplying offensive weapons for a major incursion into Rafah was off the table. “It’s just wrong,” he added.
The Biden administration has already paused at least one weapons delivery to Israel, including controversial 2,000-pound bombs, because of concerns about civilian casualties.
Israel has been waging war in Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas, the Palestinian group that has long controlled the territory, led a cross-border attack that killed about 1,200 people. The Israeli assault on Gaza has left the Strip in ruins, and has left at least 34,000 Gazans dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants.
The United States has supplied Israel with weapons since the war began.
While Biden has pushed for Israel to allow more aid into the enclave to avert famine and has been publicly critical of Israeli plans to invade Rafah, where displaced Palestinians are densely packed, military aid has remained untouched until now.
Here is what to know about U.S. military aid to Israel.
What weapons has the U.S. provided to Israel since Oct. 7?
Since Oct. 7, the Biden administration has made public two major military sales to Israel.
In December, the administration approved the sale of nearly 14,000 tank ammunition cartridges and equipment to Israel, worth $106.5 million, and the sale of 155mm artillery shells and related equipment worth $147.5 million. The White House bypassed congressional approval for both sales by invoking emergency authority.
These transfers represent only a small portion of total aid. U.S. officials have briefed Congress on more than 100 other transactions that fell under a set dollar amount required for notification. Among the weapons sold were precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker-buster rockets and other lethal aid, people with knowledge of the briefings told The Washington Post in March.
U.S.-made weapons have been used widely in Gaza since Oct. 7, though it is not clear when they were purchased or delivered. Independent analysts have said that many of the weapons used in Gaza appear to be 1,000- or 2,000-pound bombs such as the Mark 84, which can be retrofitted with Boeing-manufactured JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) kits to become precision weapons.
In March, the Biden administration authorized the transfer of 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs. The transfers had been approved by Congress several years ago but had not been fulfilled. The State Department has also authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines, U.S. officials told The Post in late March.
The United States has maintained a stockpile of weapons in Israel, known as the War Reserve Stocks for Allies-Israel, since the 1990s. The U.S. military pulled 155mm shells out of the stockpile to send to U.S. reserves in Europe after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Defense officials told reporters in late October, after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, that many of the stockpiled shells had been redirected: to the Israel Defense Forces.
What is the history of U.S. military aid to Israel?
During the 1970s, Washington provided significant surges in military aid to Israel as the country rebuilt its forces after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which a coalition of Arab nations, led by Egypt and Syria, launched an attack on Israel.
Since then, military aid has remained largely steady if adjusted for inflation, with the stated aim of helping Israel maintain a “qualitative military edge” over its neighbors.
In recent years, funding has been outlined in 10-year memorandums of understanding. In the most recent memorandum, signed in 2016, Washington pledged $38 billion in military assistance between the 2019 and 2028 fiscal years.
Most U.S. military aid to Israel falls under the Foreign Military Financing program, which provides grants that Israel uses to purchase U.S. military goods and services. The United States also contributes about $500 million annually for joint missile defense systems. Since 2009, the United States has contributed $3.4 billion to missile defense funding, including $1.3 billion for the Iron Dome, which stops short-range rockets, the State Department said last year.
Israel has been granted access to some of the most coveted U.S. military technology. It was the first international operator of the F-35 fighter jet and used the craft in combat for the first time in 2018.
U.S. support, and industrial cooperation between U.S. and Israeli defense companies, has helped Israel build up its defense industry: The country is one of the world’s top arms exporters.
In April, after months of gridlock in Washington, Biden signed a bill that included $26.4 billion in aid for Israel along with humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza.
Biden’s comments Wednesday are not the first time a U.S. president has threatened to condition aid to Israel. President Ronald Reagan halted a shipment of artillery shells and cluster bombs in 1982 during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon while Washington determined whether Israel’s use of American weapons violated arms exports laws. Reagan also paused a shipment of F-16s in 1983 until Israel withdrew from Lebanon.
Roughly a decade later, President George H.W. Bush told Israel that an aid package of $10 billion loan guarantees would only go through if Israel stopped using U.S. money to build settlements on land that belonged to the Palestinians.
Why is U.S. military aid to Israel under increased debate?
The crushing impact of Israel’s Gaza offensive on civilians has led to renewed debate about U.S. military aid. Biden has called Israel’s bombing campaign “indiscriminate.”
U.S. laws govern the transfer of military equipment to foreign governments. Among them, the Leahy Law prohibits transferring military aid to foreign governments or groups that commit gross human rights violations. On Feb. 8, Biden issued a national security memorandum detailing these rules and adding a new requirement that the administration submit an annual report to Congress about whether recipients are meeting the standards.
To make that assessment, the State Department requested written assurances from countries receiving U.S. weapons that they are abiding by existing U.S. standards, including requirements related to the protection of civilians. The U.S. memorandum says recipient countries must “facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance” or U.S.-supported international efforts to provide aid.
The State Department received Israel’s written assurances ahead of a March 24 deadline. A deadline of early May was initially set to formally assess whether the assurances are credible and to report to Congress. On Wednesday, however, the Biden administration postponed the delivery of the report due to Congress, saying that a written assessment would be provided “in the very near future,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Humanitarian groups have called on the Biden administration to not accept Israel’s assurances at face value. They say Israel, despite its insistence otherwise, is impeding the flow of aid into Gaza by truck, through long inspections at checkpoints and by refusing to open new ones. “Given ongoing hostilities in Gaza, the Israeli government’s assurances to the Biden administration that it is meeting U.S. legal requirements are not credible,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
In a letter to the Biden administration released on March 22, 17 Democratic senators said that acceptance of assurances from the Netanyahu government would be “inconsistent with the letter and spirit” of Biden’s national security memorandum, and would set an “unacceptable precedent” for “other situations around the world.”
Yasmeen Abutaleb contributed to this report.
