Exclusive: US has sent Israel thousands of 2,000-pound bombs since Oct. 7
Source: Reuters
June 28, 2024 6:49 PM EDT Updated 12 hours ago
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - The Biden administration has sent to Israel large numbers of munitions, including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles, since the start of the war in Gaza, said two U.S. officials briefed on an updated list of weapons shipments.
Between the war's start last October and recent days, the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
While the officials didn't give a timeline for the shipments, the totals suggest there has been no significant drop-off in U.S. military support for its ally, despite international calls to limit weapons supplies and a recent administration decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs.
Experts said the contents of the shipments appear consistent with what Israel would need to replenish supplies used in this eight-month intense military campaign in Gaza, which it launched after the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants who killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-has-sent-israel-thousands-2000-pound-bombs-since-oct-7-2024-06-28/
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Aussie105
(7,920 posts)Saying the US aim is to allow Israel to flatten Gaza into a dust pile, without actually saying so.
Remind me who the Good Guys are here, I'm a bit confused.
Oopsie Daisy
(6,670 posts)I hope this helps.
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)Kidnap rape & murdering civilians intentionally. How many IDF soldiers were killed on Oct 7th? Maybe 1/3 of the victims.
Orrex
(67,111 posts)No doubt grieving Palestinians can take comfort in the knowledge that their dead children weren’t bombed to bits intentionally.
One supposes that the good guys are the ones who bomb the shit out of civilian refugee camps, claiming afterward that the alleged presence of a Hamas terrorist totally, totally justifies the “unintentional” slaughter of a few hundred innocent Palestinians.
By Netanyahu’s fucked up logic, a crowd that’s 1/3 military personnel is a legitimate target for attack.
Now, before some excitable soul tries to accuse me again, let me be clear: nothing can justify the deliberate mass murder that Hamas committed on October 7th, just as nothing can excuse the rape, murder, and other violence inflicted by Hamas before and after that date. They are a terrorist cabal that must be wiped out to its last member.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t give Netanyahu a blank check to “unintentionally” kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians in response, nor can he or his defenders simply blame those deaths on Hamas.
Bozvotros
(961 posts)I can't stand the sadistic unfocussed brutality we are associated with as Israel turns Gaza into rubble and corpses. This is utterly wrong and it needs to stop. I will vote for Biden over Trump obviously, but with bitterness that these two men are our only choice. I have regarded Biden as a man of good will but sending this ammount of ordinance to a narcisstic genocidal terrorist like Netanyahu makes us as guilty as he is.
murielm99
(32,988 posts)Ever heard anyone say "From the river to the sea?"
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)Did you catch him call Biden a Bad Palestinian at the debate? You know, as the worst insult he can think of.
Demonization of a whole ethnic group of people IS very Trumpian.
BTW, ever heard anyone say "From the Jordan to the sea there will only be Israeli sovereignty"?
Orrex
(67,111 posts)That's a very convenient way to other and dehumanize these civilians.
Where have we heard such rhetoric before?
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)the grieving Palestinian families take comfort in the thought that Hamas INTENTIONALLY sacrificed their children, and that they are now martyrs for the Hamas' genocidal cause.
And just for your information, as per the Fourth Geneva Convention, a crowd that surrounds just one armed military personnel is no excuse for not legitimately targeting that armed militant regardless of the presence of civilians.
So it is absolutely lawful and appropriate to blame their deaths on Hamas.
HUAJIAO
(2,730 posts)A preponderance of which are Palestinians!! The nearly total destruction of Gaza at the hands of the Israel and American governments is horrifying.
And Biden in the debate, I believe said something about no longer supplying 2000 bombs. (Correct me if I am wrong.)
paleotn
(22,212 posts)
Historic NY
(40,037 posts)U.S. and Israel resolve weapons supply problems, but 2,000-lb. bombs still on hold
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/us-israel-bombs-release-shipment-biden
A source with direct knowledge of the meetings with Gallant said White House officials clarified there is no hold on the 500-lb. bombs and that the pause is only on the 2,000-lb. bombs.
BumRushDaShow
(169,749 posts)I.e., Bibi basically going around from place to place claiming the U.S. has been "withholding weapons" (as if it was all).
hueymahl
(2,904 posts)Not getting into the politics of isreal-hamas. We just should not be providing massive munitions into a an active warzone without strict conditions leading to peace.
murielm99
(32,988 posts)hueymahl
(2,904 posts)Answer that and you have my answer.
FredGarvin
(846 posts)10 kilo-tons worth of explosive power.
The US should not be providing a single one, much less than 10,000.
Sending that number of Hellfire missiles is wasteful in this situation.
Ukraine needs them to take out Russian armor and has been provided few.
Bad move by Biden and his administration.
But it's beyond bad. It's horrific. Ukraine , who fights against a monster intent on obliterating their nation, needs those weapons far more than Israel. It is unbelievable that a nation that suffered through genocidal terror would do the same to another group of people. And unbelievable that we would help them.
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)We USED to have several companies making our weapons & ammo. Now we're down to only a few. We only have ONE factory making black powder & its over 100 yrs old.
We have too many "single source" items that we'd depend on if WE were to get into a war with a major power
paleotn
(22,212 posts)Keeping a munitions site "warm" is one thing and not terribly expensive, i.e. in "moth balls" where there's months to years lead time to reach full production. We have a lot of those dating back to Vietnam and prior. Keeping them "hot", however, is vastly more expensive.
The other problem is wars don't happen every day, thankfully, but when they do, you burn kinetics at an astounding rate. Balancing those priorities is not easy because few today want to pay for tomorrow's wars that may not happen. At least that's the excuse. And it's not like there's much of a commercial market for those types of explosives. As an old college buddy of mine who worked in that biz said...they're just TOO energetic for much commercial use. Kind of the point of military types vs the more traditional explosives you mentioned.
We live in a dangerous world where keeping our powder dry and keep lots of it is prudent. And much more than we have in recent decades. The probabilities of needing it are relatively small year to year. 10 years ago, who could have foreseen a shooting war of this scale in Europe? But if those things do happen, not being prepared can be catastrophic. In short, we need a much larger and better managed supply of stuff that goes boom and a shorter on ramp to backfilling usage. A painful lesson of late. Expensive, but I'm willing to pay for it just like I pay for my homeowners insurance twice per year. I'll probably never use that either, but.....
hueymahl
(2,904 posts)We have been in multiple (undeclared) wars since the 80's.
I would like to see our military drastically cut, not expanded. Then use a small fraction of the savings to make us more ready.
We are bleeding to death internally by keeping our bloated military around at current levels.
New weapons projects and new capabilities need to be "tested". Conveniently we always have an active battlefield available. Ever wonder why that is?
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)We just never heard about it over here much because we didnt have "world news" 100 yrs ago like we do now.
hueymahl
(2,904 posts)That someone has been us. Ike was right. And we are too dumb, greedy and lazy to do anything about it.
The MIC is going to kill us all, and our planet. And we just go along, falling off that cliff.
BobTheSubgenius
(12,217 posts)"Softening up" a neighbourhood ahead of house-by-house fighting by creating 50-foot wide and 15-foot deep craters seems just ideal. A lot of hearts and minds won that way, as well.
JFC What has Israel got planned?
LiberalArkie
(19,804 posts)Ukraine has to pay for their old weapons.
Ray Bruns
(6,362 posts)
Hieronymus Phact
(745 posts)Hamas and their enablers aren't the only threat Israel has to deal with. Did we forget the large scale missile attack on the whole country recently? Or the continuous threats and harassment from also-funded-by-Iran Hezbollah.
Booms and air raid sirens sounded across Israel and the occupied West Bank early Sunday morning, after Iran launched dozens of drones and missiles toward Israel, in an attack that marked a major escalation of conflict in the Middle East.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/13/1244641489/iran-israel-drone-attack-middle-east-gaza.
TiberiusB
(526 posts)That was a performance, a way to preserve the appearance of retaliation without sparking a larger conflict. Almost all the launches were from Iran, giving Israel more than enough time to knock virtually all of them out. Only one person, a 7 year of girl, was severely injured by a missile fragment. One airbase suffered light damage. The girl, a bedouin, is not to be dismissed as nothing, to be clear, but Iran was responding to an Israeli attack, which some seem to think makes violence okay, at least if you're on the right team.
And let's not pretend that Israel hasn't attacked Iran, or assassinated military and scientific personnel .
This is a common problem in these threads, the reluctance by some to acknowledge that Israel is not without blood on its hands, and to simply insist that everything is entirely someone else's fault, generally Hamas. This conflict goes back decades, well before Hamas even existed. And naturally there are many more players at work than just the obvious, all with goals that have nothing to do with national security or two state solutions.
Hieronymus Phact
(745 posts)Please don't minimize it, like sure they launched shitloads of missiles but they didn't really mean it because... oh and they only harmed a little girl!
I'll also remind you who's been bombing who's embassies for decades now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_against_Israeli_embassies_and_diplomats
1992 Buenos Aires Israeli embassy bombing.
In April 2024, Argentina's second highest court ruled that the Iranian government was responsible for the bombing, and that it was carried out in retaliation for Argentina reneging on agreements to transfer nuclear material to Iran. The ruling also characterized Iran as a terrorist state.[13]
Also responsible for the 1994 AMIA bombing in that country killing 85 in a community center: On 25 October 2006, Argentine prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos formally accused the Iranian government of directing the bombing, and the Lebanese Islamist militant group Hezbollah of carrying it out.[16][5][17]
2012 Thailand Israeli embassy bombing
Three separate blasts injured five people and blew the legs off one of the bombers, an Iranian national who was fleeing the scene of the attacks when a grenade he was holding slipped out of his hand and detonated beside him. Authorities believed that the intended targets were Israeli diplomatic facilities and personnel.
I never said the Israelis had no blood on their hands. All i said was they have more problems than just Hamas and their enablers, and that bothered you. And to be clear: I NEVER minimized/excused anyone bombing anyone.
TiberiusB
(526 posts)And I never said you did.
An attack is an attack, and Israel attacked them, too. I never said Iran was a saint. I never said they never financed any terrorists or weren't involved in any other attacks. My point was simply that they knew a wider war was against their interests and so launched a flashy attack from so far away there was virtually no chance it would work. That's not minimizing it, that's realistic objective analysis. And I never said they "only harmed a little girl". I pointed out one casualty that was certainly not an intended target and even flat out said that wasn't something to be ignored. They didn't, say, bomb a refugee camp or something, though.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/572947-israel-killed-iranian-scientist-with-high-tech/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-attack-syrian-aleppo-airport-puts-it-out-service-2023-10-14/
Plucking random headlines from other incidents doesn't make anything I said untrue. Try looking up all the terrorist groups funded by the U.S. Look at all the coups. Iran might be a stable democracy if we hadn't interfered. Consider the irony that Iran, the boogie man of the Middle East, might be an ally if we had let them have their own elections and not installed the Shah. No hostages. No failed rescue. No Iran/Contra. Probably no Reagan. Looking for a hero in this is a wasted effort. Focus on what's actually going to move the needle towards ending the civilian slaughter and maybe some kind of peace. That is not through Netanyahu.
I wasn't speaking about you when I wrote about people sidestepping Israel's bad acts. I was speaking to a larger problem with people adopting a bit of tunnel vision and seemingly erasing everything that came before Oct. 7, and almost always leaning on the "Hamas attacked first" position as a justification for whatever Israel does.
Hieronymus Phact
(745 posts)but it was a good launchpad to excuse some warmongering.
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)The "Hamas" name may not have existed but the intent of other groups certainly acted the same way. "Hamas" didnt attack the '72 Olympics but they could've been called the same.
No, the IDF isnt total goodness & light but they also are dealing with groups that willfully use civilians as shields
TiberiusB
(526 posts)Do you view the U.S. supplying weapons and munitions, many massively powerful explosives, like the notorious bunker busters and 2000lb bombs, the same way? Couldn't Hezbollah say they are just trying to stop the genocide and mass slaughter of civilians?
Or is killing ten times as many civilians in a single strike as any bombing by Hezbollah or Hamas not terrorism because "Israel has a right to defend itself"? How might they view this conflict? You don't have to agree with them, but I think there is a belief that these are just mindless attacks driven by an insurmountable hatred of Israel and the Jews. That is likely a factor for some, perhaps many, but there are far more factors at play than just antisemitism or religious conflict.
It's a slippery slope.
Consider how differently the conflict is viewed, depending on which side you ask:
https://theconversation.com/why-do-israelis-and-the-rest-of-the-world-view-the-gaza-conflict-so-differently-and-can-this-disconnect-be-overcome-223188
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)There have been numerous chances for peace but the Palestinians always call for more. And their terrorist leaders dont change their pledges to destroy Israel.
TiberiusB
(526 posts)That Israel should be allowed to wipe out all Palestinians? That no atrocity is off limits? If an immigrant commits a murder, should we kill all immigrants? Some would say yes to that.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/22/23971375/israel-palestine-peace-talks-deal-timeline
https://apnews.com/article/un-israel-palestinians-gaza-guterres-cff00a5b6b7295b738a2255b03a6090e
Yes, the Palestinian leadership has rejected past peace proposals, so they have been their own worst enemy many times, but Israel has reneged on multiple agreements or flat out refused to agree to a two state solution, as well. Again, ignoring Israel's misdeeds does not help the discussion.
Bozvotros
(961 posts)But they aren't trying to obliterate Iran or Lebanon are they? That's too dangerous for them, so they are fighting a careful strategic kind of war with them. They should learn from our Vietnam experience where we dropped more bombs than all wars before this, destroyed whole towns and villages and killed 2 million civilians to 1 million actual NVA and Viet Cong. And we lost the war. Israel's current terrorist warfare is inspiring decades more terrorism towards them and more support to Hamas from other Arab nations. Netanyahu is totally corrupt, grandiose and unfit to lead. I wonder what its going to take for Israel to get rid of him.