Biden administration uses emergency authority to allow sale of tank shells to Israel
Aid charities sound alarm about ‘apocalyptic’ conditions in Gaza
The State Department on Friday used an Arms Export Control Act emergency declaration for the tank rounds worth $106.5 million for immediate delivery to Israel, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The shells are part of a bigger sale that was first reported by Reuters on Friday that the Biden administration is asking the US Congress to approve. The larger package is worth more than $500 million and includes 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks, regularly deployed in its offensive in Gaza, which has killed thousands of civilians.
As the war intensified, how and where exactly the US weapons are used in the conflict has come under more scrutiny, even though US officials say there are no plans to put conditions on military aid to Israel or to consider withholding some of it.
Rights advocates expressed concern over the sale, saying it doesn’t align with Washington’s effort to press Israel to minimize civilian casualties.
A State Department official said on Saturday that Washington continues to be clear with the Israeli government that it must comply with international humanitarian law and take every feasible step to avoid harm to civilians.
The proposed sale conveys US commitment to Israel’s security and it will bolster Israel’s defensive capabilities, the official said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined and provided detailed justification to Congress that the tank shells must immediately be provided to Israel in the national security interests of the United States, according to the Pentagon statement.
The sale will be from US Army inventory and consist of 120 mm M 830 A 1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer (MPAT) tank cartridges and related equipment.
“Israel will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense,” the Pentagon said, adding that there will be no adverse impact on US defense readiness as a result of the sale.
Israel’s Merkava tanks, which uses 120mm shells, are also linked to incidents that involved the death of journalists.
On Thursday, a Reuters investigation revealed that an Israeli tank crew killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six reporters by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling.
Aid charities sound alarm about ‘apocalyptic’ conditions in Gaza
Aid charities have sounded the alarm about an “apocalyptic” situation in Gaza after more than two months of war between Israel and Hamas, warning of starvation and an outbreak of disease.
In a video conference with journalists this week, international organizations depicted a bleak picture of what Save the Children called the “horrors” unfolding in the Gaza Strip.
“The situation in Gaza is not just a catastrophe, it’s apocalyptic… with potential irreversible consequences on Palestinian people,” said Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam, another UK-based charity.
“Israel safe zones within Gaza are mirage,” she added.
Israel launched a massive military offensive against Gaza after Hamas militants burst across the border into southern Israel on October 7 and, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 hostages.
The health ministry in the Hama-run Gaza says 17,487 people have been killed in the war, which has displaced an estimated 1.9 million of the territory’s 2.4 million people and reduced vast areas to rubble.
Only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are currently functioning in any capacity, according to UN humanitarian agency OCHA, and little aid is reaching those in need.
“Those who survived the bombardment now face imminent risk of dying of starvation and disease,” said Alexandra Saieh of Save the Children.
“Our teams are telling us of maggots being picked from wounds and children undergoing amputations without anesthetic,” lining up by the “hundreds” for a “single toilet” or roaming the streets in search of food, she added.
Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, mostly women and children.
Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid
An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas over its unprecedented attack on October 7 when militants broke through Gaza’s militarized border to kill around 1,200 people and seize hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.
Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.
“It’s so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear, I still don’t know what the next step will be,” said Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.
A UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate ceasefire was vetoed by the United States on Friday.
US envoy Robert Wood said the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the ceasefire “would prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip”.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said it was “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace”.
The veto was swiftly condemned by humanitarian groups, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying the Security Council was “complicit in the ongoing slaughter”.
Israel’s military said Friday it had struck 450 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, showing footage of strikes from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.
The Hamas health ministry reported 40 dead near Gaza City in the north, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
Following two months of conflict and bombardment, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Friday “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss”.
“People are desperate, fearful and angry,” he said.
“All this takes place amid a spiralling humanitarian nightmare.”
Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who have been displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.
With the death toll of medical workers in the conflict mounting, more than a dozen World Health Organization member states submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarians in Gaza.
They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.
Only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity, according to United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA.
With the civilian toll mounting, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that Washington believes Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in the conflict.
“We certainly all recognize more can be done to… reduce civilian casualties. And we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,” he said.
The death toll also rose in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians on Friday, the territory’s health ministry said.
Israel said Friday it has lost 91 soldiers in Gaza.
It said two others were wounded in a failed bid to rescue hostages overnight, and that “numerous terrorists” were killed in the operation.
Hamas claimed a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body, which could not be independently verified.
Hamas rocket parts, launchers and other weapons as well as a one-kilometre tunnel were found at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, the army said, as it warned residents to move west.
An attack on the US embassy in Iraq on Friday deepened fears of wider regional conflict.
Salvoes of rockets were launched against the mission in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, adding to dozens of recent rocket and drone strikes by pro-Iran groups against American or coalition forces in Iraq and Syria.
Separately, three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in the south of Syria, a war monitor said.
“A Syrian and three Lebanese Hezbollah fighters from the surveillance and missile-launching unit were killed in the Israeli drone strike on their rented car” in Madinat al-Baath town in the province of Quneitra, close to the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The previous day the Observatory, which has a network of sources in Syria, reported that Israel hit sites close to Damascus with eight missiles, as well as a “regime military post in the province of Quneitra”, without causing any casualties.
The strikes were a response to the bombardment of the Golan Heights, the monitor said.