"A shipment of heavy aerial bombs recently released by the US government was received and unloaded overnight in Israel," the defence ministry statement read, referring to MK-84 munitions recently authorized by US President Donald Trump's administration.
"The munitions shipment that arrived in Israel, released by the Trump administration, represents a significant asset for the air force and the military and serves as further evidence of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States," said Israel Katz in the statement.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration approved the sale of more than $7.4 billion in bombs, missiles, and related equipment to Israel.
The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency had commented that the sale "improves Israel's capability to meet current and future threats, strengthens its homeland defence, and serves as a deterrent to regional threats."
The Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, enabled by tens of billions of dollars’ worth of US jetfighters and bombs, killed at least 47,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 110,000, most of whom were women and children.
The war has destroyed 92 percent of the homes in Gaza and displaced the majority of its 2.4 million population.
When ceasefire negotiations were still in progress and facing public backlash regarding civilian casualties, former US president Joe Biden blocked a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. In rebuke, the US House of Representatives passed the Israel Security Assistance Support Act on 15 May 2024. Trump reportedly released the shipment upon taking office on 20 January.
The large majority of the House that voted in favour of the bill reflects the overwhelming support for Israel among the US political class. In April, the House of Representatives passed a $95 billion foreign assistance package for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. The tranche for Israel, which amounted to $26.4 billion, was called the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act and was approved by a vote of 366-58.
The US has been Israel’s leading supplier of advanced weapons for decades.
Israel is also the largest recipient of US foreign aid. Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in 2016, the US committed to $3.8 billion per year in defence aid to Israel for a ten-year period starting in 2019.
Of this, $3.3 billion annually is for ordinary defence aid, and $500 million annually is for ballistic missile defence (BMD). These amounts represent a significant increase over the previous ten-year MoU that went into effect in 2009, which allocated $3 billion annually to Israeli defence.
The weapons shipments that Biden temporarily suspended accounted for only a fraction of the weapons the US has been sending to Israel almost daily since 7 October. According to a Washington Post report in March, the Biden administration approved and delivered over 100 arms sales to Israel since 7 October. Each sale was just below the threshold that would require Congressional approval.
Rubio is expected to discuss the Gaza ceasefire and Trump's proposal to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians and displace them from their homeland to Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries.
In a radio interview last week, Rubio suggested that Trump's proposal was partly intended to pressure Arab states into developing their own postwar plan that would be acceptable to Israel. He also indicated that Arab countries should send in troops to "confront Hamas."
“If someone has a better plan, and we hope they do, if the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said on the Clay and Buck Show last Thursday.
“Hamas has guns,” he added. “Someone has to confront those guys. It’s not going to be American soldiers. And if the countries in the region can’t figure that piece out, then Israel is going to have to do it, and then we’re back to where we’ve been.”
Egypt and Jordan: NO means NO!
Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab nations have unanimously rejected Trump's plan.
Arab and Muslim countries reiterated their commitment to establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, believing a two-state solution is the only just solution to the Palestinian cause.
Egypt has affirmed its categorical rejection of any proposal or plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause by displacing Palestinians from their homeland, even temporarily.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has publicly stressed that Cairo “would not be a party to such a plan.”
Cairo also cautioned that a large-scale displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would jeopardize its nearly 50-year-old peace treaty with Israel.
Egypt will host an Arab summit on 27 February to fortify the Arab front against Trump's colonialist-style proposals.
At the summit, Cairo will present Arab countries with a counterproposal for reconstructing Gaza without displacing its Palestinian population.
On Saturday, a well-informed Egyptian source involved in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations told Al-Qahera News that Hamas said it will not take part in administering the Gaza Strip during the upcoming phase.
Rubio in the Arab Gulf
Rubio will leave Tel Aviv for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
"Rubio’s engagements with senior officials will promote U.S. interests in advancing regional cooperation, stability, and peace,” stated the US State Department. "The trip will centre on freeing American and all other hostages from Hamas captivity, advancing to Phase II of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and countering the destabilizing activities of the Iranian regime and its proxies.”
The UAE, key in the 2020 Abraham Accords – where four Arab states normalized relations with Israel – has rejected Trump's displacement proposals.
In tandem, Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed that it will not normalize relations with Israel without a pathway to a Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia will host the leaders of four Arab nations at a summit on 20 February to discuss alternatives to Trump's proposal for a US takeover of Gaza and the forced displacement of its population, a source familiar with the preparations informed AFP on Friday.
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