President Donald Trump is slated to resume shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, reports say, despite the fragile Gaza ceasefire deal having been implemented the day before his inauguration on Monday and Israel’s extensive use of the bombs on civilian areas.
Trump is expected to lift the hold on the bombs within his first few days in office, according to outgoing Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Mike Herzog, Israeli news outlet Walla News reported. Axios also cited Herzog in saying that Israel is expecting the resumption of such shipments.
“We believe that Trump is going to release, at the beginning of his term, the munitions that haven’t been released until now by the Biden administration,” the official told Axios. Herzog added that Trump’s team played a “major role” in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations and made some assurances to Israel in order to secure the deal, including being allowed to resume its slaughter in Gaza.
Former President Joe Biden had reportedly paused the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in May, as Israel was embarking on its raid of Rafah that was once a “red line” for the Biden administration. Reportedly, there was a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that was withheld by U.S. officials as part of this pause, which was effectively the only condition placed by Biden on Israel amid the genocide.
In the first few months of the genocide, the U.S. sent Israel at least 14,000 such bombs. Israeli forces used these bombs extensively on civilian areas in Gaza, despite or perhaps because of their extremely high capacity for destruction, including in an attack on the “humanitarian safe zone” in Al-Mawasi in July, killing at least 90 people and injuring 300.
A study released in October found that, just in the first six weeks of the genocide, Israel dropped nearly 600 2,000-pound bombs near hospitals, in range where they could damage hospitals and kill people inside. These bombs had been dropped in lethal range of every single hospital in the Gaza strip just in that time, the research found.
Trump’s first term in office was marked by numerous pro-Israel moves, and his new team is packed full of Zionists, signalling that Trump will continue Biden’s policies of supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
On his first day in office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order lifting sanctions issued by Biden officials against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled Israel’s occupation of the West Bank a violation of international law.
“Lifting sanctions on extremist settlers encourages them to commit more crimes against our people,” said the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.
Biden’s sanctions, issued last February, allowed the administration to go after Israelis committing settler violence or property seizure against Palestinians in the West Bank. The administration had used this authority to sanction a small number of settlers and settler groups, but avoided sanctioning Israeli leaders who were allowing the groups to operate and overseeing the settlement of the West Bank.
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