The United States is by far the largest arms supplier to Israel, and accelerated arms deliveries after the October 7 attack.
It is difficult to determine how much Israel has received, but it is estimated at thousands of weapons, and in most cases, these supplies have been expedited under committed contracts, many of which were approved by Congress and the State Department long ago.
But ambiguity surrounds the quality and quantity of these weapons, and the information available to the public is very scarce, and below is some of what has been documented according to a report by the New York Times.
Lawmakers and the media have recently criticized the lack of public information about the sales. While the Ministry of Defense has so far published only two press releases, on December 9 and 29, about approving emergency military sales to Israel.
While it lists much of the military equipment sent to Ukraine in a regularly updated fact sheet.
But the State Department can legally refrain from telling Congress and the public about some new weapons requests Israel has placed since October 7 because they fall below a certain dollar amount.
The United States has approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since October 7, according to the Washington Post.
What was sent?
One sale approved in late October allows Israel to sell $320 million worth of kits to convert unguided “dumb” bombs into GPS-guided munitions, on top of an earlier $403 million order for the same guidance kits.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has compiled a list of news reports and available official information about the weapons that were handed over.
This reportedly includes air defense systems, precision guided munitions, artillery shells, tank shells, small arms, Hellfire missiles used by drones, 30 mm cannon ammunition, PVS-14 night vision devices, and shoulder-fired missiles. .
The Pentagon leased two Israeli-made Iron Dome anti-missile batteries to Israel, according to the Breaking Defense website.
The United States also granted Israel access to US military stocks in Israel to meet immediate needs.
A US official said that the munitions Israel recently requested from those stockpiles included bombs weighing between 250 and 2,000 pounds, many of which were 500-pound bombs.
How to finance?
In parallel, military aid to Israel is funded under the 2016 agreement known as the Memorandum of Understanding, which obligated the United States to give Israel weapons worth $38 billion over 10 years.
Additionally, President Biden last month signed an aid package that will send about $15 billion in additional military aid.
Israel regularly receives weapons from the Department of Defense and directly from American arms makers, which include unguided and guided bombs that Israel has purchased from the United States over the years and dropped on Gaza in recent months, as well as fighter jets, air defense missiles, air defense systems, and helicopters.
It is noteworthy that US military aid to Israel has amounted to $216 billion since Israel’s founding in 1948, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
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