Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the United States will soon remove all restrictions on weapons transfers to Israel. Speaking on Tuesday, Netanyahu revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured him during a June 10 meeting in al-Quds that President Joe Biden's administration is working "day and night" to lift these restrictions.
"I certainly hope that's the case. It should be the case," Netanyahu said in a statement. "Give us the tools and we'll finish the job a lot faster," he added, referencing Israel's brutal military campaign in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Following Blinken's pledge, The Washington Post reported that two key Democrats in Congress have agreed to support a major arms sale to Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter jets worth more than $18 billion. These lawmakers, who had previously held up the sale, signed off on the deal under heavy pressure from the Biden administration.
In a separate report, The Washington Post noted that the Biden administration has approved and delivered more than 100 arms sales to Israel since the offensive against Gaza began on October 7. These sales included thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, and other weapons.
The U.S. remains Israel's largest weapons supplier, followed by Germany. However, some Western countries like Italy, Canada, and the Netherlands have halted arms shipments to Israel this year under pressure from human rights groups, who argue that these sales risk complicity in what they describe as the regime’s genocide in Gaza.
Since early October, Israel's military forces have killed more than 37,400 people in the Gaza Strip.