Israel and Hamas at War – Day 264

The diplomatic dispute between Israel and the USA continues. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that ammunition deliveries to Israel are “even higher than in peacetime.” This refutes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there has been a “dramatic halt” in deliveries.

The WSJ noted that the stagnation in American arms deliveries to Israel was not due to political changes, but to a lower number of new requests from the Israeli government.

While the US argues for maintaining or increasing the pace of deliveries, Netanyahu insists that deliveries have dropped significantly. While current delivery rates are lower than during the munitions shipments following the October 7 Hamas attacks, they are reportedly at or above peacetime levels.

US State Department spokesman Mathew Miller indicated that Israel’s requests for ammunition had decreased. The Israeli Defense Ministry has not commented on the matter.

Tracking arms shipments to Israel is complex because orders are placed years in advance, and the lack of public disclosure and use of various channels that bypass Congress further complicate matters.

Former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned in October 2023 over his disagreement with the Biden administration’s decision to rush Israel after the October 7 Hamas attacks, said the lack of transparency on arms sales to Israel would benefit President Joe Biden’s campaign by avoiding controversy over munitions shipments. The president is under pressure from progressive Democrats to reduce arms sales amid allegedly high civilian death tolls in Gaza.

According to Palestinian health officials, more than 37,000 Palestinians were killed in the war, most of them women and children. Israeli government sources dispute this claim, saying that about half of the Palestinians killed were combatants, a figure that compares favorably with other examples of urban warfare.

The debate over ammunition shipments comes at a critical time as Netanyahu prepares to testify before Congress on July 24 about the International Criminal Court’s war crimes allegations.