JRDs Introduced to Block Trump’s $8.56 Billion in Weapons to Israel
IMEU Policy Project Memo #17
BACKGROUND
On February 20, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced four JRDs to block weapons to Israel, which are valued at $8.56 billion, and include the following:
10,000 M107 and/or M795 155mm High Explosive artillery shells ($312.5 million) (S.J.Res.20)
2,166 GBU–39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs); 2,800 MK 82 General Purpose 500-pound bombs; 17,479 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) Guidance Kits; and 17,475 FMU–152 A/B bomb fuzes ($6.75 billion) (S.J.Res.21)
3,000 AGM–114 Hellfire Air-to-Ground Missiles ($660 million) (S.J.Res.22)
15,500 JDAM tail kits and 615 SDBs ($688 million) (S.J.Res.23)
These weapons deals were formally notified to Congress by the Trump administration and published in the Congressional Record on February 10: (Transmittal No. 24-16), (Transmittal No. 24-13), (Transmittal No. 24-104), and (Transmittal No. DDTC 24-052).
These weapons likely will be paid for by US taxpayers through Foreign Military Financing (FMF).
The Trump administration’s formal notification of these weapons largely appears to be a repackaging of informal notifications for weapons to Israel sent by the Biden administration to the “Four Corners” (the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee) in November 2024 and January 2025.
(For more details on the legislative process on weapons notifications, see the policy paper written by former State Department official Josh Paul, published by our affiliated organization, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, entitled “Security Assistance and Arms Transfers: Human Rights Frameworks and Recommendations for Strengthening”.)
Rep. Gregory Meeks, Ranking Member of HFAC, reportedly put a hold on at least the November 2024 informal notification. Apparently neither informal notification received the approval of all of Four Corners before Trump’s formal notification, eliciting condemnation from Rep. Meeks, who stated:
“The Trump Administration informed me that it would abrogate Congressional oversight and years of standing practice and immediately notify billions of dollars in arms sales. This move is yet another repudiation by Donald Trump of Congress’ rightful and legitimate oversight prerogative…Through his actions, President Trump has made abundantly clear he holds no regard for Congress as the people’s duly elected representatives and a co-equal branch of government.”
Trump’s action to circumvent committee oversight of these weapons deliveries comes after Rep. Meeks reportedly also placed a hold earlier this month on Trump’s informal notification of a separate weapons package to Israel of 4,700 1,000-pound bombs and Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, valued at $1 billion.
💡POLICY ASK: IMEU Policy Project strongly urges Senators to cosponsor these JRDs.
WHY CONGRESS SHOULD PASS JRDs
Additional weapons deliveries to Israel would further undermine the fragile Hamas-Israel ceasefire and could be used by Israel to restart its genocidal violence and implement Trump’s reprehensible plan to ethnically cleanse more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza.
Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an alleged war criminal facing arrest by the International Criminal Court, are undermining the fragile ceasefire by advocating for the forced displacement of all Palestinians from Gaza and by making new demands of Hamas that contradict the agreed-upon stipulations of the agreement. In addition, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians in Gaza despite the ceasefire and has reneged on its commitment to allow adequate levels of temporary housing into Gaza for Palestinians whose homes Israel destroyed. With both Trump and Netanyahu advocating for the resumption of Israel’s genocidal violence on Saturday, February 15, combined with the US and Israeli threat of mass ethnic cleansing, Congress must pass JRDs now to reinforce the fragile ceasefire and send a strong signal to Israel that Congress objects to a resumption of Israel’s violence and its possible ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
All of the types of weapons Trump wants to deliver to Israel were used extensively in Israel’s genocidal violence against Palestinians since October 2023, many of which have been repeatedly linked to apparent war crimes.
Israel’s repeated use of JDAMs, small diameter bombs, 500-pound bombs, and Hellfire missiles to commit apparent war crimes in its attacks against Palestinians in Gaza violate US laws, such as the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits any US weapons to a country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, and the Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of US weapons to internal security and legitimate self-defense. Israel’s use of US weapons against Palestinian living under foreign military occupation in Gaza cannot be considered internal and the commission of apparent war crimes is never legitimate. Congress must pass JRDs now to ensure that Israel is held accountable for its previous violations of US law and to ensure that no additional US weapons can be used by Israel to commit additional atrocities against Palestinians, which would further make the US complicit in Israel’s genocidal violence and potential ethnic cleansing. (For details of incidents in which these weapons were used by Israel to commit apparent war crimes against Palestinians, see the section below.)
Congress must assert its prerogatives as a co-equal branch of government against an administration that is bent on circumventing its oversight role and on dismantling federal agencies funded through Congressional appropriations.
Trump’s bypassing of the Four Corners to rush weapons to Israel without committee oversight is part and parcel of the administration’s utter disregard for Congress as a co-equal branch of government. This circumvention of Congress must be seen in the context of Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency”, which has moved with alacrity to strip federal agencies of the ability to spend money appropriated by Congress, negatively impacting the ability of nonprofits to deliver food to food insecure seniors; of Medicaid to provide healthcare to low-income people; of the National Institutes of Health to fund life-saving medical research; of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect Americans from frauds and scams; and of USAID to provide life-saving food, clean drinking water, and medicine to some of the most under-served people in the world. Congress must pass JRDs now as part of a broader attempt to reassert Congressional authority against an administration bent on undermining constitutional checks and balances.
DETAILS ON ISRAEL’S APPARENT WAR CRIMES WITH THE US WEAPONS IN TRUMP’S FORMAL NOTIFICATION
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.
TABLE 1: DETAILS OF ALL NOTIFICATIONS OF WEAPONS TO ISRAEL, NOVEMBER 2024-FEBRUARY 2025
This table is color coded to match the weapons informally notified by the Biden administration in November 2024 and January 2025 to the weapons formally notified by the Trump administration in February 2025.
Photo: ImageBank4u, via Shutterstock
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