WASHINGTON/GAZA: The Biden administration has sent to the Zionist entity large numbers of munitions, including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles, since the start of the war in Gaza, said two US officials briefed on an updated list of weapons shipments.
Between the war’s start last October and recent days, the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials.
While the officials didn’t give a timeline for the shipments, the totals suggest there has been no significant drop-off in US military support for its ally, despite international calls to limit weapons supplies and a recent administration decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs. Experts said the contents of the shipments appear consistent with what the Zionist entity would need to replenish supplies used in this eight-month intense military campaign in Gaza.
The shipments are part of a bigger list of weapons sent to the Zionist entity since the Gaza conflict began, one of the US officials said. A senior Biden administration official on Wednesday told reporters
that Washington has since Oct 7 sent $6.5 billion worth of security assistance to the Zionist entity. Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks claimed that Washington was withholding weapons, a suggestion US officials have repeatedly denied even though they acknowledged some "bottlenecks”.
The Biden administration has paused one shipment of the 2,000-pound bomb, citing concern over the impact it could have in densely populated areas in Gaza, but US officials insist that all other arms deliveries continue as normal. One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
While the US provides detailed descriptions and quantities of military aid sent to Ukraine as it fights a full-scale invasion of Russia, the administration has revealed few details about the full extent of US weapons and munitions sent to the Zionist entity. One of the US officials said the Pentagon has sufficient quantities of weapons in its own stocks and had been liaising with US industry partners who make the weapons, such as Boeing Co and General Dynamics, as the companies work to manufacture more.
Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on Saturday, the third day of a Zionist military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called "unbearable” living conditions in the territory. An AFP correspondent reported ongoing explosions from the Shujaiya area near Gaza City, with a resident saying bodies were visible on the streets.
A resurgence of fighting in the area comes months after the Zionist entity had declared the command structure of Hamas militants dismantled in northern Gaza. The Gaza war has also led to soaring tensions on the Zionist entity’s northern border with Lebanon, leading Iran on Saturday to warn of an "obliterating” war if the Zionist entity attacked Lebanon. The Zionist offensive has killed at least 37,834 people, mostly women and children, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza. It reported at least 69 deaths over the previous 48 hours.
Mohammed Harara, 30, said he and his family, young and old, felt as though they would become part of that toll. He said they fled from their home in Shujaiya with nothing, "due to the bombardment by (Zionist) planes, tanks and drones” that they barely survived. "We couldn’t carry anything from the house. We left the food, flour, canned goods, mattresses, and blankets,” Harara said.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that "about 60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from the area this week. AFPTV images on Saturday showed men moving belongings on a donkey cart. Some people were pushed in wheelchairs. Children walked with backpacks past piles of dusty debris. "I saw a tank in front of the Shuhada mosque firing” at targets, said Abdelkareem Al-Mamluk. "There were martyrs in the street.”
On Friday Hamas and the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad both said they were fighting in Shujaiya. Elsewhere in the coastal territory, the civil defense agency on Saturday said four bodies were pulled from an apartment after a Zionist strike in the central region. Further south, in the Rafah area, witnesses reported dead and wounded after a new incursion by Zionist troops.
Tarek Qandeel, director of the medical center in Al-Maghazi, central Gaza, said the facility was seriously damaged in the bombing of a neighboring house, making it the latest Gaza medical facility affected by the war. The United Nations, in a report on Friday that cited Gaza’s health ministry, said "about 70 percent of health infrastructure has been destroyed”.
Separately, a UN spokeswoman, Louise Wateridge, said by video link that she had just returned to central Gaza after four weeks outside the territory. "It’s really unbearable,” she said, describing a "significantly deteriorated” situation. "There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food,” and people are returning to live in "empty shells” of buildings. In the absence of bathrooms they are "relieving themselves anywhere they can”, Wateridge said. – Agencies