Wall Street Journal: Washington sent 100 bunker-buster bombs to Israel
A report in the Wall Street Journal said that the United States has supplied Israel with 100 bunker-buster bombs and tens of thousands of other weapons for use in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing US officials, that Israel had been provided with bunker-buster bombs with a BLU-109 warhead designed to penetrate concrete before detonating.
The process of supplying Israel with additional weapons and ammunition, including 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, began shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, and the process is still ongoing.
The Wall Street Journal said that the United States, which supplied weapons to its most important allies in the region even before the Gaza War, hadn’t previously disclosed the number of weapons provided to Israel or the number of bunker-buster bombs.
An internal US Department of Defense document showed that the United States had secretly increased its military aid to Israel, extending beyond Iron Dome interceptor missiles.
Washington provided Tel Aviv with laser-guided missiles for the fleet of Apache helicopters, 155 mm artillery shells, night vision devices, anti-fortified ammunition, and new military vehicles, according to Bloomberg.
Sources who viewed an internal Pentagon list of that equipment also reported that it shows that US military aid extends beyond what the United States announced about providing aid to the Iron Dome system and smart bombs manufactured by Boeing, revealing that this aid continued to flow to Israel even as it increased.
The US administration officials issued warnings to Tel Aviv about avoiding civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.
Bloomberg said that the weapons provided by the United States to Israel were contained in a document entitled “Requests from a Senior Israeli Leader,” dating back to last October, and being circulated in the corridors of the US Department of Defense.
The document confirmed that these weapons have already been shipped, as the Pentagon is working to provide them from stocks in the United States and Europe, which speeds up their delivery to Israel compared to new contracts.
In turn, a Pentagon spokesman refused to discuss details of the weapons, but the Pentagon said in a statement that its resorting to several methods, including internal stockpiles and American industrial channels, to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself.
