A U.S. halted bomb shipment to Israel to signal concerns over Rafah, an official says

U.S. Wartime Assistance to Israel During the 1957 Suez Crisis and the 2004 Israeli-Palestinian Abandonment of the Gaza Strip

President Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel with the threat of sanctions into withdrawing from the Sinai in 1957 in the midst of the Suez Crisis. At a time of rising tensions in the Middle East, Ronald Reagan delayed the delivery of fighter jets to Israel. President George H.W. Bush held up $10 billion in loan guarantees to force the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have had good relations with Israel. There have been times since the founding when the U.S. threatened to hold up aid if Israel did not help them.

The U.S. dropped the 2,000-pound bomb sparingly in its long war against the Islamic State militant group. Israel, by contrast, has used the bomb frequently in the seven-month Gaza war. The use of the weapon has aided in pushing the Palestinian casualty count to more than 34,000, though it doesn’t differentiate between militant and civilians.

The State Department is considering whether or not to grant approval for the transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits to Israel, but they did not look at imminent shipments.

The National Security Act that Congress passed in December included funds for Israel and other allies. The package contains over 14 billion dollars in military aid for Israel.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Israel described the operation along the Gaza-Egypt border in eastern Rafah as “an operation of limited scale and duration” aimed at cutting off Hamas arms smuggling, but also said the U.S. would monitor the fighting.

There has been concern within the White House, but administration officials have said that they did not think the operation had deviated from the warnings of Biden.

Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, most recently in a Monday call with Netanyahu.

The United States Aid to the Palestinians in Gaza During the Israeli Intifad: Biden, Israel and the Status of the Operation

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to square the arms holdup with Biden’s rhetoric in support of Israel, saying only, “Two things could be true.”

U.S. officials had declined for days to comment on the halted transfer, word of which came as Biden on Tuesday described U.S. support for Israel as “ironclad, even when we disagree.”

Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House. The official said the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.

An official with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press the shipment was intended to include 1,700 500-pound bombs and 2,000-pound bombs. Over 1 million people have been put up in Rafah since the Israeli attack on Hamas, which killed more than 70 people.

Then the United Nations will deliver the much-needed food and medicine to Palestinians, some of whom are already suffering famine conditions. Half of the people in Gaza are starving according to the UN.

But questions remain about whether this will be a successful operation. Senior military officials say tens of thousands of desperate residents could cluster at the end of the causeway, snarling the trucks and denying much needed aid.

Officials say the effort will begin with 90 trucks per day and soon ramp up to 150. But that’s not enough, humanitarian officials say, noting that 500 trucks per day rolled into Gaza from land crossings before the October 7th The Hamas group launched an attack.

The United States’ goal is to provide aid from sea and causeways to supplement the more efficient land crossings. The situation is more dire now that the border crossing is closed and an Israeli military operation is imminent.

The U.S.-led initiative to address the humanitarian crisis in the region was slated to begin by early May, despite President Biden’s stated importance in his March State of the Union speech.

The pier itself is complete, but it is being delayed by weather, according to officials at the Department of Defense. On Monday, National Security spokesman John Kirby said security arrangements for those delivering the aid are still being worked out.

While U.S. officials have described the pier as a supplement — not a replacement — for existing aid distribution efforts, humanitarian aid groups say that the port is a “performative” aid operation that will make minimal headway in addressing the humanitarian crisis in the region.

A floating platform along with a pier is being constructed by the U.S. Navy and the US Army. Biden made it clear, however, that “no U.S. boots will be on the ground” in Gaza.

Shipments of aid will first arrive in Cyprus, according to USAID. Before the shipments leave for Gaza from Cyprus, Israeli officials will inspect the deliveries. The ships will then deliver the aid to a floating platform further out from shore, and then smaller vessels will move the aid to the pier itself, which is located on the shore of the Gaza Strip. Trucks deployed by another group would then bring shipments to the rest of Gaza over land.

The World Food Program will be involved in delivering the aid according to the Pentagon. Aid groups that deliver aid from the pier are at risk of being compromised, and questions remain about safety. More than 200 aid workers have died in the war, and the recent killing of seven foreign aid workers with World Central Kitchen, who died in targeted Israeli airstrikes, catapulted the issue into the global spotlight.

“I am not sure of a situation where many trucks full of aid are a few miles away from the border, where most of the people are in need,” she said. The only way to save lives is to allow the trucks in.

What’s driving the humanitarian crisis – the siege is driving it, not the pier; how much will it take to make a difference?

The Vice President of Global Policy and Advocacy with the charity said the construction of a pier wouldn’t mitigate ongoing challenges that they face.

“If we don’t stop the fighting, we can’t safely deliver aid at the necessary level,”Phillips-Barrasso said. “We have been very clear that what’s really driving the humanitarian situation — it’s the siege.”