Israeli artillery units fire at an undisclosed target in the Gaza Strip on 7 May 2024
The US last week paused a bomb shipment for Israel over concerns it was going ahead with a major ground operation in Rafah, southern Gaza, a senior administration official says.
The shipment consisted of 1,800 2,000lb (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs, the official told CBS News, the BBC’s media partner in the US.
Israel has not “fully addressed” US concerns over humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, the official says.
Israel made no immediate comment.
“The US 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,” the White House administration official said.
“We 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.
“Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns. As 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.
“As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs. We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment.”
The unnamed official added that “for certain other cases at the State Department, including JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] kits, we are continuing the review. None of these cases involve imminent transfers – they are about future transfers”.
The official stressed that none of these shipments had “anything to do with the Israel supplemental appropriations” in April but had been drawn from “previously appropriated funds, some many years ago”.
