The United States has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including dozens of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, the State Department announced Tuesday, two days before the deal was signed. ceasefire planned Negotiations begin in the region.
Congress was briefed on the impending sale, which had been expected since April and comes at a time of heightened concern that Israel could be involved in a wider war in the Middle East. The package includes up to 50 F-15 fighter jets, up to 30 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, tactical vehicles and a large number of tank rounds and high-explosive mortar rounds.
However, the weapons are not expected to arrive in Israel immediately, or even this year, with delivery dates ranging from 2026 to 2029. Earlier this year, several lawmakers, including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, had planned to oppose the sale.
The equipment is intended to maintain and strengthen Israel’s overall defensive capability in the long term, and most of it will be delivered in installments over several years, a State Department official told CBS News. The F-15s, for example, will be manufactured by Boeing and will take at least a decade to complete, the official said.
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“The United States is committed to Israel’s security, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to help Israel develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” the State Department said in a statement about the sale.
The Biden administration had to balance its continued support Israel has faced growing calls from lawmakers and the American public to limit military support to Israel due to the high civilian death toll in Gaza. Israel has suspended a 2,000-pound arms shipment, as Israeli airstrikes continue in densely populated civilian areas of Gaza.
The contracts will include not only the sale of 50 new Boeing-produced planes, but also upgrade kits that will allow Israel to modify its current fleet of two dozen F-15 fighter jets with new engines and radars, among other improvements. The planes represent more than $18 billion of the $20 billion in sales.
The sale came ahead of Thursday’s ceasefire talks, coordinated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar. A Hamas representative told CBS News on Tuesday that Hamas would not participatealthough they would continue negotiations, as they have not received assurances from the negotiators that Israel would commit to working on the basis of Hamas’s July 2 proposal.
“We are determined to reach an agreement, because it is our responsibility to our people to end the massacres and famine that the war and occupation are committing against our people,” Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, Ahmad Abdul Hadi, told CBS News in a statement in Arabic.
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The arms sale announcement also comes just weeks after Netanyahu’s. double on his allegations that the United States had withheld arms shipments for Israel’s war effort in Gaza, despite The Biden administration denies this claim.
On June 23, Netanyahu told his cabinet that U.S. arms shipments had declined dramatically four months earlier, without specifying what weapons. His comments came days after an English-language video was released in which he claimed that weeks of unsuccessful attempts had been made with U.S. officials to speed up the shipments.
