The Biden administration has paused shipments of two types of precision bombs to Israel in response to U.S. opposition to Israeli forces\u2019 operation in Rafah, according to a U.S. official.<\/p>\n
One shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs the administration says might be used in Rafah has been placed on hold.<\/p>\n
\u2018The U.S. position has been that Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go,\u2019 the U.S. official said in a statement to Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
\u2018We have been engaging in a dialogue with Israel in our Strategic Consultative Group format on how they will meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza,\u2019 the official continued. \u2018Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns.\u00a0As Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision point on such an operation, we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah. This began in April.\u2019<\/p>\n
Following this review, the U.S. decided last week to pause a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, according to the official, who said the administration is \u2018especially focused\u2019 on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and \u2018the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza.\u2019<\/p>\n
A final determination has not yet been made on how to proceed with this shipment.<\/p>\n
\u2018For certain other cases at the State Department, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, we are continuing the review,\u2019\u00a0the official said. \u00a0None of these cases involve imminent transfers \u2013 they are about future transfers.\u2019<\/p>\n
The official also emphasized that these shipments do not have anything to do with the Israel supplemental appropriations passed last month.<\/p>\n
\u2018All are drawn from previously appropriated funds, some many years ago,\u2019 the official said. \u2018We are committed to ensuring Israel gets every dollar appropriated in the supplemental. In fact, we just approved the latest tranche of Foreign Military Financing: $827 million worth of weapons and equipment for Israel.\u2019<\/p>\n
The statement from the U.S. official comes after two Israeli officials told Axios that U.S.-manufactured ammunition to Israel was paused last week for the first time since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack against the Jewish State.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that it had gained operational control of the Gazan side of the Rafah Crossing after troops began a \u2018precise counterterrorism operation\u2019 in eastern Rafah aimed at killing Hamas terrorists and dismantling \u2018Hamas terrorist infrastructure within specific areas of eastern Rafah.\u2019<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Liz Friden contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
The Biden administration has paused shipments of two types of precision bombs to Israel in response to U.S. opposition to Israeli forces\u2019 operation in Rafah, according to a U.S. official. One shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs the administration says might be used in Rafah has been placed on hold. \u2018The U.S. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}