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For months, the Biden administration waited to formally approve $20 billion in future American weapons sales to Israel, including F-15s and medium-range missiles. The official notification to Congress was finally announced last week — right before Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to Israel in a bid to nail down a cease-fire agreement with Hamas.
Almost none of the arms — which also include tank ammunition, tactical vehicles and mortars — are expected to be delivered to Israel for several years at least. But the delay in approving them underscores the delicate balance the administration faces between supporting Israel in its war in Gaza and responding to the anger in the United States over massive civilian casualties in that war.
The White House has tried to contain domestic opposition to arms for Israel in Congress, while attempting to keep the war against Hamas from escalating into a wider regional conflict.
“We recognize Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism and other security threats, consistent with international humanitarian law,” a State Department statement said. “We will continue to do what is necessary to ensure Israel can defend itself in the face of these threats.”
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U.S. officials said the White House considered a number of factors — including daily developments in Gaza, last month’s visit to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and concerns about retaliation by Iran and its proxies, especially after the assassinations of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders — in deciding when to formally approve the sales. The timing of the announcement also intended in part to avoid an ugly fight in Congress at a time when the Biden administration is trying to broker a cease-fire. Congress is not in session this month, and a 15-day clock for lawmakers to try to block the sales runs out next week.
Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer and senior military expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research group, said the White House is calculating that the announcement of the arms sales could have an immediate deterrent effect.
“We are sending extraordinary combat power to the region to deter a wider regional war, and we are saying we will be delivering vital capabilities to Israel for years to come,” Mr. Bowman said. “That’s an important message from the world’s leading military power as Israel confronts extraordinary threats.”
The war in Gaza — and how it has divided the American public — has put a spotlight on the normally lengthy, technical process by which U.S. weapons producers sell arms to foreign governments.
Here is a look at the arms sales that the Biden administration notified Congress on Aug. 13 that it has approved.
F-15 fighter jets
Up to 50 new F-15 IA jets, and upgrade kits for the 25 F-15 I aircraft that Israel already has, are at the core of the $18.8 billion purchase that Congress was first informally notified about in January. The deal was initially delayed by the top Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs committees amid concerns about Israel’s tactics in Gaza, but they agreed in June to let it move forward.
The package with Boeing Corp. also covers an array of equipment for the jets — including 120 engines, 75 radars, 320 missile launchers and 180 GPS devices, among other technology. None of it is expected to be delivered until 2029.
The F-15s will help Israel “meet current and future enemy threats, strengthen its homeland defense and serve as a deterrent to regional threats,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in its announcement of the approval.
Tank ammunition
Israel plans to buy 32,739 tank cartridges of 120-millimeter rounds from military contractors General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman for an estimated $774.1 million. The sale would also include various tank munitions, canisters and support services, with deliveries beginning in 2027.
The informal notification of the proposed sale was sent to Congress in May, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and CNN. It was part of initial discussions between Congress and the State Department to also sell tactical vehicles and mortar rounds to Israel, in an arms package totaling $1 billion. The final notification for the vehicles and mortars was also sent to Congress on Aug. 13.
Tactical vehicles
The sale of eight-ton cargo trucks is valued at $583 million. The trucks, which would be delivered starting in 2026, are used for freight transport, unit resupply and other tactical missions to support combat units.
The notification does not specify how many of the trucks Israel plans to buy from the manufacturer, the Oshkosh Corp., but says the total sale would include an earlier, $62.4 million order for the trucks, spare parts, software delivery and other support.
Mortar rounds
Israel plans to buy 50,400 120-millimeter high-explosive cartridges for mortars, a kind of portable cannon. The sale, totaling $61 million, includes 400 rounds from an earlier proposed sale from General Dynamic Ordnance. They will be delivered starting in 2026.
Medium-range missiles
The U.S. has approved the sale of 30 medium-range, air-to-air missiles from the AIM-120 C-8 series. The missiles are considered “a key aerial combat capability used to defend against airborne threats, such as the missile and drone salvo launched at Israel on April 14,” according to a statement from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
The notification did not say when the missiles would be delivered to Israel, and a U.S. official said it is possible that some could be sent in the next year, based on production capacity. They are being sold to Israel by RTX Corp. for $102.5 million.
The AIM-120 C-8 series, known as an “AMRAAM” are used by militaries around the world. In Ukraine, AMRAAMs are expected to arm the fleet of F-16 fighter jets that European governments are sending to help Kyiv defend its country from Russia.
Key Developments
Vice President Kamala Harris signaled little change from President Biden in her stance on the war in Gaza, using her address to the Democratic convention on Thursday to suggest she would continue to try to strike a balance on an issue that has divided her party. Ms. Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said that she would “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself,” but also called for a cease-fire to end the hardship of Gazan civilians, saying: “The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.” Hundreds of protesters outside the convention hall in Chicago called for the United States to cut off weapons sales to Israel in order to put pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease Israel’s bombardment of densely packed Gaza neighborhoods, which Israel has said is an effort to kill Hamas leaders.
A delegation including Israeli security chiefs returned home on Thursday night after meetings in Cairo aimed at helping salvage a cease-fire in Gaza, according to two Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. In Cairo, talks focused on security arrangements along Gaza’s border with Egypt and on reopening the Rafah border crossing there. Diplomats, including senior U.S. officials, have shuttled across the region in recent days in an attempt to clinch a truce in Gaza, which they hope will avert a wider regional war. They hope to hold another summit to advance the talks in the coming days, although it is unclear where and when that would take place.
A 10-month-old baby in Gaza has contracted polio and is paralyzed in his left leg, in the first case of the disease in the territory in 25 years, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization chief, said in a statement posted to social media late Thursday. The Gaza Health Ministry had reported the polio case last week but offered few details. The United Nations has said it is ready to begin an expansive vaccination effort that would focus on more than 640,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza.
The Philippines, one of the world’s largest sources of seafarers, warned its mariners on Friday to avoid sailing in the Red Sea “unless absolutely necessary for their livelihood” amid a series of attacks by the Yemen-based Houthi militia on shipping. The advisory came a day after the European Union naval mission said that the crew of a Greek-flagged oil tanker that came under gun and missile attack this week had been rescued and that the vessel, which was carrying 150,000 metric tons of crude oil, had become a “navigational and environmental hazard.” The Houthis, who say they are staging attacks in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, have not claimed responsibility for that incident.
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A group representing relatives of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel said on Thursday that autopsies showed “bullets were found in the bodies” of six captives Israeli troops recovered from an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, raising questions about how they died.
The group, the Hostages Family Forum, said that the autopsy results indicated that the six hostages “were taken alive and executed in the tunnels of Hamas.”
But an Israeli military spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter to families, said on Thursday that the autopsies showed “marks suggestive of gunshots” on the bodies and stressed it was too soon to determine whether gunshot wounds were the cause of death.
The autopsy reports have not been made public. The New York Times has not reviewed them and cannot confirm the results.
Four other bodies found in the tunnels near the hostages, believed to belong to Hamas militants, did not display the same marks, the military spokesperson said.
How and when the hostages died has been a matter of contention. Hamas has blamed the deaths on Israeli airstrikes, and the Israeli military has acknowledged some of them likely died while Israel was carrying out military operations in the area where they were found. Some Israel news outlets reported the hostages may have suffocated when the tunnel filled with toxins after an airstrike.
The revelations raise new questions about the circumstances of the hostages’ deaths after months of conflicting statements about some of the recovered captives from Hamas and the Israeli military.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military announced that it had recovered the six bodies in a hidden tunnel network, alongside four of their presumed captors.
Five of the six captives were already believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military. Three of them — Haim Peri, 80; Yoram Metzger, 80; and Alexander Dancyg, 75 — had been abducted from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border. Two others — Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Yagev Buchshtab, 35 — were taken from another border community, Nirim.
The sixth body belonged to another resident of Nir Oz, Avraham Munder, 79. Mr. Munder’s death had not been established previously.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, said in March that Mr. Metzger and Mr. Peri were among seven hostages who had been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Hamas then said in May that Mr. Popplewell had died from injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike more than a month earlier.
Weeks later, in early June, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said that it was examining the possibility that some of the hostages had been killed together months earlier while Israeli forces were operating in the Khan Younis area.
On Tuesday, Adm. Hagari was asked again about how the hostages died at a news conference. He repeated what he had said in June — that the “hostages were killed while our troops were operating in Khan Younis” — and added that a forensic examination would reveal more.
Israeli news media reported on Tuesday that initial assessments suggested that five of the six hostages had died from suffocation when an Israeli airstrike hit another tunnel, causing the one they were in to fill with carbon dioxide. The Times could not confirm those reports.
The recovery of six dead hostages this week emphasized the urgent need for a cease-fire deal, families of the captives said in their statement on Thursday. The forum said the evidence the hostages may have been shot “serves as further proof of the cruelty of the terrorists,” and it condemned the government’s failure to reach a cease-fire agreement that would lead to the return of all hostages and an end to the fighting in Gaza.
“In every minute that the deal is not completed, another hostage could lose their life,” the forum said. “After 10 and a half months of war in which the hostages have been suffering, tortured, and dying, it is clear to all that the return of the hostages is only possible through a deal.”
