Biden Administration Reviews Bomb Shipment to Israel Amid Gaza Conflict Concerns

The Biden administration is reviewing a paused shipment of heavy bombs to Israel due to concerns over potential Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza. As discussions continue, other weapon supplies to Israel will proceed to support its fight against Hamas and Hezbollah. Tensions also focus on the Israel-Lebanon border and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

U.S. President Joe Biden's top aides told the visiting Israeli defense chief this week that Washington is maintaining a pause on a shipment of heavy bombs for Israel while the issue is under review, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. The official, briefing reporters about national security adviser Jake Sullivan's meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said the allies remain in discussions about the single shipment of powerful munitions, which was paused by Biden in May over concerns they could cause more Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza.

Without providing specifics, the official said other U.S. weapons will continue to flow to Israel as it battles Hamas militants in Gaza and faces Lebanese Hezbollah fighters on its northern border, where escalating hostilities have spurred fears of a wider regional conflict. Wrapping up his visit, Gallant said earlier on Wednesday that there had been significant progress on the issue of U.S. munitions supply to Israel, adding that "obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed."

Gallant and U.S. officials sought to cool tensions following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent claims that Washington was withholding weapons, prompting Biden's aides to express disappointment and confusion over the Israeli leader's remarks The United States in May paused a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in densely populated areas in Gaza in the war that began with Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 cross-border raid. But Israel is still due to get billions of dollars worth of other U.S. weaponry.

"We are in discussions ultimately to find a resolution," the senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. "But I think the president has expressed his concerns about that one shipment, and those are very valid concerns." The official acknowledged there have been "bottlenecks" in some weapons deliveries to Israel but attributed that to a "complicated bureaucratic system" for approving military assistance and not any deliberate slowdown.

ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER Gallant also discussed with Sullivan "Israel's commitment to ensuring the safe return of Israeli communities to their homes in the north by changing the security reality in the area," the Israeli defense chief's office said.

Gallant on Tuesday met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who said the U.S. was working urgently in pursuit of a diplomatic agreement to calm the situation on the Israel-Lebanon border between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters. An exchange of shelling and missile strikes has led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border, and escalation has sparked fears of an all-out war in the area.

"Nobody that we have talked to, Lebanon, Israel, wants a major escalation that is not in anybody's interest," the senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. Sullivan raised U.S. concerns about tensions in the occupied West Bank and the importance of resuming tax revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority that Israel has been withholding, the White House said.

Gallant's talks in Washington also focused on Iran, Israel's regional arch-foe. He discussed with Sullivan the importance of cooperation "vis-a-vis Iranian aggression and its nuclear ambitions," Gallant's office said. While Israel has expressed increasing alarm over Iran's nuclear program, the senior U.S. official cited intelligence assessments that Tehran is not "currently pursuing the procedures and processes they would need to develop an explosive nuclear device."

But the official added that Iran had taken some "provocative steps" recently that would not go unchallenged. The U.S. and Israel, the official said, are working to reschedule a strategic dialogue on Iran. A meeting set for last week was scrapped following Netanyahu's criticism.

Iran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland, additional reporting by Katharine Jackson; editing by Chris Reese, Diane Craft, Cynthia Osterman and Sonali Paul)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)