WASHINGTON, May 08 (APP): The United States has paused a shipment of “high-payload” munitions to Israel for review over concerns about a potential military offensive on the Gazan city of Rafah, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.
The paused delivery was supposed to contain 3,500 bombs, split roughly evenly between 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) and 500-pound explosives, a senior administration official was cited as saying in media reports.
Austin said no final decision has been made on the shipment.
But the defence secretary stressed that the U.S. commitment to Israel’s defense remained “iron-clad” and that the decision on suspending the munitions shipment was not final.
Still, he said the U.S. preference would be that “no major combat take place in Rafah” and that at a minimum any Israeli operation must safeguard civilian lives.
“We’ve been very clear… from the very beginning that Israel shouldn’t launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battles pace,” Austin told a Senate hearing.
“And again, as we have assessed the situation, we have paused one shipment of high payload munitions,” he told a Senate hearing.
“We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment.”
Israel has threatened a major assault on Rafah, but Western nations and the United Nations say a full-scale attack on the city would triggger a humanitarian catastrophe.
Since Oct 7, Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas has led to a seven-month-long military campaign that has so far killed a total of 34,789 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The conflict has also left many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people on the brink of starvation and sparked protests in the U.S. demanding that universities and Biden withdraw support for Israel – including the provision of weaponry. Biden is also under pressure from Democrats, including lawmakers in his party, to put more pressure on Israel.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was among the Republicans who rebuked the Biden administration over the decision.
“This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need,” Graham said, adding it wasn’t for Washington to second-guess how Israel fought a war against Hamas bent on Israel’s destruction.
U.S. Senator Deb Fischer, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on Biden to drop “his politically-motivated hold”.
“American support for Israel cannot be in doubt, especially now,” she said.
For its part, the Israeli military appeared on Wednesday to play down the arms shipment hold-up, saying the allies resolve any disagreements “behind closed doors”.
Speaking at a conference hosted by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper as the Gaza war entered its eighth month, Israel’s chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari described coordination between Israel and the United States as reaching “a scope without precedent, I think, in history”.
