DESPITE a week of tensions with Israel over its conduct of the Gaza War, Washington is reported to have authorised arms transfers to its ally worth billions of dollars.
These include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000lb (900kg) bombs and 500 MK82 500lb bombs, as well as 25 F35A fighter jets, The Washington Post and Reuters news agency have said.
The larger bombs have previously been linked to air strikes in Gaza causing mass casualties.
Washington gives $3.8bn (£3bn) in annual military assistance to Israel.
But the latest package comes as the Biden administration has been raising concerns about rising civilian deaths in Gaza and humanitarian access to the territory, which the UN says is on the verge of famine.
The administration has also said it “cannot support” an anticipated large-scale Israeli ground offensive in Rafah on the Egypt border, where there are more than a million displaced people.
The Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs in Ramallah criticised the US for inconsistencies in its positions.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, it said: “demanding [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to stop killing civilians and supplying him with weapons is an unprecedented principled and moral contradiction”.
News of the arms transfers emerged on the same day that President Joe Biden spoke of “the path being felt by so many in the Arab-American community with the war in Gaza”.
The arms transfers have also been strongly criticised by some senior members of the president’s Democratic party who have been calling for US military aid to be limited or conditional on changes in how Israel conducts military operations.
The US State Department told the BBC that it was unable to confirm potential or pending US arms transfers before Congress was formally notified.
Quoting Pentagon and State Department officials, the Washington Post reported that the extra warplanes being sent to Israel were initially approved as part of a larger package by Congress in 2008 and had been requested last year – in advance of the deadly 7 October attacks by Hamas which triggered the Gaza war.
When Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant went to Washington last week, it was said he had taken a long list of US weapons his country wanted to receive in an expedited manner.
