U.S. weapons fuel genocide against Palestinians

Aftermath of Israel’s bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp, Oct. 31, 2023.

While forked-tongue President Joe Biden publicly calls for Israel to “protect civilians” and “limit civilian casualties” in Gaza, according to a Dec. 1 report in the Wall Street Journal, since Oct. 7, the U.S. has been  privately sending Israel massive amounts of death-causing weapons. Among the arsenal have been 100 two-ton BLU-109 guided bunker-buster bombs meant to penetrate hardened structures before exploding.  

The weapons included 15,000 bombs comprised of 5,000 standard Mk82 bombs;  5,400 2-ton Mk84 bombs; 1,000 250-pound extended range, precision GBU-39 bombs; and 3,000 JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) with a guidance kit to convert other bombs into precision-guided munitions. 

In addition to these weapons designed to do maximum damage, the U.S. is providing Israel with internationally banned white phosphorus and cluster bombs to use against the civilian population in Gaza. They have provided the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza with 57,000 artillery shells and thousands of firearms that the IOF handed out to Israeli settlers for use against Palestinians in the West Bank.

White phosphorus first tested in Iraq

The U.S. is fully aware of the damage to human lives and habitat caused by all of these weapons. U.S. forces used white phosphorus in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. (Human Rights Watch, June 14, 2017) In a 2005 interview with the BBC, U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Lt. Col. Barry Venable admitted that white phosphorus had been used as an “incendiary anti-personnel weapon” during the first battle in Fallujah, Iraq.

The Journal article reports that the large U.S. bombs have been used in some of the deadliest attacks on Gaza, including the Oct. 31 strike that leveled an apartment block in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing and injuring hundreds of people, including children. However, the fact that even the most powerful of these bombs are not capable of penetrating the depth of the resistance’s tunnels lays bare the blatant lie that Israel is just trying to target Hamas.

Heidi Zhou-Castro, correspondent for Al Jazeera English, noted: “These are major bombs that the U.S. has used in past wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, but mainly in open areas … Now Israel is using these bombs in a very different environment in Gaza, on a densely populated civilian population.” (Dec. 2)

U.S. military supplies to Israel since 1960

Since Oct. 7, these military armaments have been rushed to Israel in U.S. C-17 military cargo planes. All of this military aid, paid for by U.S. taxpayers’ money, comes on top of the billions of dollars Israel already receives each year from Washington. 

In 1951, the U.S. began sending annual economic and military aid to Israel. Since 1960, the majority of the allocations have been $3.8 billion in military aid annually, with no limits placed on how it was used. In 1974 and 1979 more than $15 billion was sent each year.  Biden’s most recent request for $14.3 billion in military assistance to Israel has been held up in Congress, but is expected to clear for passage this week.

Resistance News Network on Dec. 1, notes: “The violence that Gaza is being subjected to is a direct result of the material, financial and ideological support that it receives from Western companies, NGOs, universities and think tanks. This flow of advanced weaponry, from one blood-soaked hand to another while shrouded in secrecy, is more mounting evidence of the direct role played by Western powers in fueling this genocide.”