US has sent Israel 14,000 2,000-pound bombs since October

Pallets of BLU-117 2,000-pound general-purpose bombs on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman [Photo: Airman Ricardo J. Reyes]

Andre Damon, Palestine, Countercurrents, 30 June 2024 :  The Biden administration has sent Israel more than 10,000 city block-destroying 2,000-pound bombs since October, Reuters reported Friday.

Each of these bombs has a blast radius of up to 500 feet and is highly lethal up to 250 feet. In some cases, they can be lethal up to 1,200 feet away. If dropped on a city block, one of these bombs would damage nearly every building on the block and potentially kill dozens or hundreds of people.

Among the most notorious uses of this weapon was the October 31 strike that destroyed the Jabalia refugee camp, killing or wounding over 400 people. The use of these massive bombs has largely been phased out by the American military, nominally because of their massive potential for “collateral damage.”

These 14,000 2,000-pound bombs have a combined yield of 7.8 kilotons, equivalent to half to the power of the “Little Boy” atomic bomb that the US used to destroy Hiroshima in 1945.

The provision of these weapons demonstrates the genocidal intent of the Biden administration. Knowing full well that Israel has been dropping these bombs on densely populated urban areas, the Biden administration has provided 14,000 of them.

In addition to the 2,000-pound bombs, the US has provided 6,500 500-pound bombs, as well as 2,600 Hellfire guided missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs and 2,600 small-diameter bombs. To date, the US has provided $6.5 billion in weapons, which it distributed in over 100 separate tranches in order to bypass congressional oversight.

The revelation of the exact composition of the munitions sent exposes the complete fraud of the Biden administration’s claim that it opposes Israel’s use of heavy munitions inside cities. In December, Biden condemned the Netanyahu government for carrying out “indiscriminate bombing.”

Given the fact that the US gave Israel more 2,000-pound bombs than all other types of bombs and missiles combined, it is clear that the intent of the United States was to level Gaza, as Israel has done.

In January, the BBC reported that more than half of the buildings in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged. By this point, the figure is likely to be closer to three-quarters.

One troubling interpretation is that the United States sees Gaza as an experiment in the total destruction of a densely populated urban area. Given the horrific scale of mass urban destruction that has been unleashed, the use of nuclear weapons in a future war cannot be seen as such a qualitative leap.

Reuters’ report was published one day after the presidential debate, in which the two candidates scrambled to paint themselves as the greatest defenders of Israel and the Gaza genocide.

Biden declared, “We provide Israel with all the weapons they need, and when they need them,” declaring, “we are the biggest producer of support for Israel of anyone in the world.”

Trump, for his part, praised the Netanyahu government for opposing any negotiated settlement of the war, declaring, “let them finish the job.” Trump called Biden, the author of the Gaza genocide, “a Palestinian.”

The debate came the same day as Axios reported that the Biden administration will imminently release a shipment of 1,700 500-pound bombs that were put on hold for delivery over the White House’s alleged concern that they would be used in an offensive on Rafah.

The White House has fully endorsed Israel’s assault on Rafah, which has displaced over 1 million people. The offensive has largely cut off food shipments through the southern Rafah border crossing, accelerating mass starvation throughout Gaza, and halted emergency medical evacuations over the border, leaving thousands of critically ill people stranded in Gaza with insufficient medical care.

To date, 37,765 Palestinians have been killed and 86,429 have been injured in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

The news that the Biden administration will green-light the sending of more bombs to Israel followed the meetings by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with high-ranking Biden administration officials in Washington.

Gallant was welcomed by senior White House officials Wednesday, after the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applied for charges against him last month, accusing the Israeli defense minister, alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

Gallant’s trip sets the stage for the visit by Netanyahu to Washington on July 24, when he is set to address both houses of Congress.

In a readout of the meeting between Gallant and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the White House wrote, “Mr. Sullivan reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, including in the face of threats from Iranian-backed terrorist groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah.”

The White House praised the purported humanitarian efforts of Gallant, the man who has pushed the population of the narrow enclave to the brink of starvation by declaring a “complete blockade” of food into Gaza because the Palestinians are, in his words, “human animals.”

The readout declared:

Mr. Sullivan and Minister Gallant discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the need to increase and sustain the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Mr. Sullivan recognized Minister Gallant’s personal efforts and leadership to support these efforts.