![Israel: Washington informs Congress of billion arms delivery Israel: Washington informs Congress of billion arms delivery](https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/66445c7c057ca85f1a064b27/1280x720/01101081542533-web-tete.jpg)
After seven months of conflict in the Middle East, United States support for Israel has not weakened. The US executive informed Congress that it would make an arms delivery to the Jewish state worth around $1 billion, a week after President Joe Biden threatened to limit the military aid to its ally.
Congress must still approve this arms delivery, which includes $700 million in tank ammunition and $500 million for tactical military vehicles, according to the Wall Street Journal, which revealed the information.
$13 billion in aid to Israel
This aid comes from the $95 billion military aid package passed at the end of April by Congress for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Among this envelope, 13 billion are devoted to the Jewish State. The law had great difficulty passing, blocking outgoing military aid for weeks.
Last week, Joe Biden affirmed “that he would not deliver” certain weapons to Israel, of which the United States is the primary military supporter, in particular “artillery shells”, in the event of a major offensive against Rafah , a city in the far south of the Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have found refuge. An unprecedented warning from Washington. The United States has also delayed a delivery of bombs to Israel.
Strikes on Rafah
For several days, Israeli strikes have targeted different sectors of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah. Fierce fighting took place in the east of the city, where IDF tanks entered on May 7.
In Washington, left-wing elected officials in Congress could try to derail this arms delivery. Since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the United States has made public two sales under the “emergency procedure” to its ally – a procedure which allows a direct shipment, bypassing a thirty-day process in Congress.
With AFP