Congress Must Block $8.7 Billion of Weapons to Israel
IMEU Policy Project Memo #15
On November 27, the Biden administration informally notified Congress of a proposed weapons deal to Israel for thousands of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits and hundreds of small diameter bombs worth $680 million.
On January 3, the Biden administration informally notified Congress of another proposed weapons deal to Israel for AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles for fighter jets, 155mm artillery shells, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles for attack helicopters, 2,800 MK-82 500-lb. bombs, JDAMs, small diameter bombs, and bomb fuzes worth $8 billion (details are reported here and here).
When weapons deals are informally notified to Congress, the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) can prevent the weapons deals from moving forward by placing “holds” on them.
If holds are not placed on weapons deals then the administration can formally notify Congress of these deals. At this stage, Members of Congress can then introduce Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) to block a weapons deal from proceeding.
(For more details on the legislative process, see the policy paper written by former State Department official Josh Paul, published by IMEU, entitled “Security Assistance and Arms Transfers: Human Rights Frameworks and Recommendations for Strengthening”.)
Let’s be clear: Israel should not be getting any US weapons. Even before October 2023, Israel’s systematic violence and brutality toward and oppression of the Palestinian people made Israel ineligible for any form of US assistance due to its systematic violations of US laws such as the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. In addition, US weapons transfers to Israel violate the Biden administration’s own policies, including its Conventional Arms Transfer policy and National Security Memorandum-20.
Israel’s actions since October 2023 intensify the urgent need to prevent additional weapons transfers to Israel lest the US deepen its complicity in and partnership with Israel in what leading human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded are crimes of genocide and extermination being committed against Palestinians.
In particular, Members of Congress should utilize all means available to them to block these particular weapons deals because Israel repeatedly has used many of these particular US weapons in atrocities committed against Palestinians in Gaza, which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
JDAMs
Israel’s use of JDAMs has been linked to potential war crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and civilians in Lebanon. For example, in December 2023, Amnesty International found that Israel used JDAMs in “two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip,” which killed 43 people, including 19 children.
In May 2024, Human Rights Watch documented that Israel targeted a residential building in Lebanon with JDAMs, killing seven Lebanese aid workers, in an “unlawful attack on civilians.”
In July 2024, Israel attacked a so-called “safe zone” in al-Mawasi, in which internally displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing at least 90 people and injuring hundreds more. A CNN investigation found that Israel carried out this attack with at least one JDAM.
In October 2024, an Israeli airstrike on a mosque and school in central Gaza killed 26 Palestinians and injured 93, according to Reuters. CNN video from the aftermath of the airstrike showed a JDAM tail kit at the scene.
Also in October 2024, an Israeli airstrike conducted with a JDAM killed three journalists in Lebanon and wounded four other journalists. Human Rights Watch concluded in December 2024 that this was “most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime”.
Small Diameter Bombs
In January 2024, an Israeli airstrike on the Nofal family home in Tal al-Sultan killed 18 civilians, including ten children. According to Amnesty International, fragments of a GBU-39 small diameter bomb were found at the site of this attack.
In May 2024, CNN confirmed that an Israeli air strike on a designated safe zone in Rafah, an attack which killed at least 45 Palestinians and injured more than 200, included the use of GBU-39 small diameter bombs.
In another Israeli airstrike conducted in May 2024, the New York Times reported that a GBU-39 small diameter bomb killed at least 30 Palestinians in an attack on a family home and school in Nuseirat.
In June 2024, NPR reported that Israel also dropped a GBU-39 small diameter bomb on an UNRWA school in Nuseirat, which killed 32 Palestinians, including seven children.
In July 2024, CNN reported that evidence of a GBU-39 small diameter bomb was found in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on the UNRWA Abu Oraiban school in Nuseirat, an attack in which 22 Palestinians were killed.
Also in July 2024, the New York Times reported that weapons experts identified the markings of a GBU-39 small diameter bomb at the site of an Israeli airstrike on Al Awda School in Khan Younis, an attack which killed an estimated 27 Palestinians who were sheltering there.
In August 2024, CNN reported that an Israeli airstrike on a mosque and school in Gaza, an attack which killed at least 93 Palestinians, was conducted with a GBU-39 small diameter bomb.
Hellfire Missiles
In June 2024, an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp to free hostages killed nearly 300 Palestinians. The attack included Hellfire missile strikes from Apache helicopter gunships, according to the New York Times.
Another Israeli airstrike on a health clinic in Gaza City in June 2024 killed five people, including Hani al-Jaafarawi, Gaza’s director of ambulances and emergency. According to Responsible Statecraft, al-Jaafarawi was the 500th medical worker killed by Israel since October 2023. The rocket motor of a Hellfire missile was recovered at the site of the airstrike.
In the same July 2024 airstrike on the Abu Oraiban school mentioned in the section above, weapons experts also found evidence that Israel used Hellfire missiles in this attack.
MK-82 500-Lb. Bombs
According to the American Friends Service Committee, Israel uses MK-82 bombs “extensively” in its attacks against Palestinians in Gaza.
JDAMs can be fitted onto MK-82 bombs. In reference to the October 2024 Israeli airstrike on a central Gaza mosque and school mentioned above in the section on JDAMs, munitions expert Trevor Ball assessed that the Israeli airstrike was conducted with an MK-82 bomb.
155mm Artillery Shells
In November 2023, Oxfam America and 32 other humanitarian and religious organizations sent an open letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin opposing the transfer of 155mm artillery shells to Israel. These organizations argued that the use of 155mm artillery shells in densely populated areas was “inherently indiscriminate” and could not be used in compliance with international humanitarian law. The letter noted that Israel extensively employed 155mm artillery shells in previous attacks against Palestinians in Gaza, targeting “schools, neighborhoods, hospitals, shelters, and refugee camps, killing, wounding, and displacing scores of civilians.”
According to the Arms Sales Accountability Project, Israel fired 155mm white phosphorus artillery shells against civilians in Gaza and Lebanon in October 2023–a violation of international humanitarian law.
Already by the end of 2023, Israel fired at an estimated 100,000 artillery shells, 90 percent of which were targeted at Palestinians in Gaza, causing an unknown amount of destruction and civilian harm.
AMRAAMs
Although air-to-air missiles do not pose a direct threat to Palestinian civilians, provision of AMRAAMs to Israel may increase the chances that Israel will engage in acts of aggression against other regional air forces, potentially escalating the regional dimensions of its attacks and potentially enmeshing the US in a broader regional war.
Photo: The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.