- Within hours of blocking a UN Security Council resolution from demanding a ceasefire in the current Mideast conflict, the U.S. State Department on Friday night transmitted an emergency …
- The sale, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would likely have fallen through if a ceasefire had come into effect.
- A State Department spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had notified Congress of the request on Friday night.
WASHINGTON, DC – Within hours of blocking a UN Security Council resolution from demanding a ceasefire in the current Mideast conflict, the U.S. State Department on Friday night transmitted an emergency declaration to Congress to clear the way for the sale of thousands of tank shells to Israel.
The sale, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would likely have fallen through if a ceasefire had come into effect.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken informed Congress on Friday that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale.”
A State Department spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had notified Congress on Friday night “that he had exercised his delegated authority to determine an emergency existed necessitating the immediate approval of the transfer” of the tank munitions.
“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to be clear with the government of Israel that they must comply with and must take every feasible step to avoid harm to civilians.”
The State Department disclosed in a separate announcement on Saturday that the sale would be for “13,981 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer (MPAT) tank cartridges.”
The extent of the Biden administration’s support for the massive military onslaught in Gaza which, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, has killed more than 17,000 people, well over two-thirds of whom have been babies, children and women, has been astonishing.
A house divided
Even the White House has been divided with its interns expressing dismay and horror at the administration’s attitude to the onslaught.
“We will no longer remain silent on the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” forty of the White House interns said in a letter this week to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “We heed the voices of the American people and call on the Administration to demand a permanent ceasefire.”
“We were horrified by the brutal October 7th Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, and we are horrified by the brutal and genocidal response by the Israeli government, funded by our American tax dollars,” the letter said.
“While the Administration expressed support for the humanitarian pause, we maintain that anything other than a complete halt of Israel’s mass slaughter of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip will simply not suffice. We will never forget how the pleas of the American people have been heard and thus far, ignored,” the White House interns letter said.
Friday night’s urgent request to Congress overrides a standard 20-day period allowing Congressional committees to respond.
Early in the week, the White House called on Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells to Israel for its Merkava tanks, CNN reported Saturday. A source said the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which have oversight over military sales, had been under “pressure” from the State Department to approve the request quickly. The total sale is worth more than a third-of-a-billion dollars ($367 million).
“As a matter of policy, we do not confirm or comment on proposed defense transfers or sales until they have been formally notified to Congress,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN when asked about the request.
Last month, the State Department formally notified congressional leaders that it would transfer $320 million worth of precision-guided bomb equipment to Israel, CNN previously reported.
Israel has received 200 cargo planes of military equipment from “several countries” since the Hamas terror attack on October 7, including ammunition, armored vehicles and weapons, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
The Israeli ministry said more than 10,000 tons of military equipment have been delivered since the start of the war.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Defense told CNN the aid had come from “several countries,” but declined to say what other countries had sent aid or how much of it had come from the United States.
The shipments of U.S. military aid began soon after the ‘war’ began. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Israel on October 13 as a C-17 cargo plane landed with security assistance to Israel.
“There’s a lot more that follows this,” Austin said at the time.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was sharply critical of the U.S. government’s overriding of emergency authority to allow the sale of the 13,000-odd tank shells to Israel without congressional review.
“Rushing deadly weapons to the far-right and openly genocidal Israeli government without congressional review robs American voters of their voice in Congress, emboldens Netanyahu to kill more Palestinian civilians, and furthers stains our nation’s standing in the world,” CAIR’s National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said.
“The Biden administration’s decision is an affront to democracy and an act of moral insanity.”
According to CNN, in late October, a senior defense official said the U.S. was expediting the delivery of precision-guided joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs) to Israel.
This week Amnesty International said it had concluded U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) were used by the Israeli military in two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the Gaza Strip, in separate airstrikes in October. Amnesty it had made the finding based on a new investigation into the airstrikes.
‘The organization found that these air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks and is calling for them to be investigated as war crimes.’
Amnesty said it found distinctive fragments of the munition in the rubble of destroyed homes in central Gaza following the two strikes that killed a total of 43 civilians 19 children, fourteen women and 10 men. In both cases, survivors told Amnesty International there had been no warning of an imminent strike.
The first of the strikes, on 10 October, was on the al-Najjar family home in Deir al-Balah which killed twenty-four people. On 22 October, an air strike on the Abu Mu’eileq family home in the same city killed 19 people. Both homes were south of Wadi Gaza, within the area where, on 13 October, the Israeli military had ordered residents of northern Gaza to relocate to.
“The fact that US-made munitions are being used by Israeli military in unlawful attacks with deadly consequences for civilians should be an urgent wake-up call to the Biden administration. The U.S.-made weapons facilitated the mass killings of extended families,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General said in a statement this week.
“Two families have been decimated in these strikes, further proof that the Israeli military is responsible for unlawfully killing and injuring civilians in its bombardment of Gaza.”
“In the face of the unprecedented civilian death toll and scale of destruction in Gaza, the U.S. and other governments must immediately stop transferring arms to Israel that more likely than not will be used to commit or heighten risks of violations of international law. To knowingly assist in violations is contrary to the obligation to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. A state that continues to supply arms being used to commit violations may share responsibility for these violations,” Callamard said.
