Israel has received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States, after US president Donald Trump lifted a block imposed on the export of the munitions by the administration of predecessor Joe Biden, the Israeli defence ministry said on Sunday.
The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000lb bomb that can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
The Biden administration declined to clear them for export to Israel out of concern about the impact on densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Biden administration sent thousands of 2,000lb bombs to Israel after the October 7th, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas militants from Gaza but later held up one of the shipments. The hold was lifted by Trump last month.
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“The munitions shipment that arrived in Israel tonight, released by the Trump Administration, represents a significant asset for the Air Force and the IDF and serves as further evidence of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States,” Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said late on Saturday.
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The shipment arrived after days of concern about whether a fragile ceasefire in Gaza agreed last month would hold, after both sides accused each other of violating the terms of the deal to halt fighting to allow the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails.
Washington has announced assistance for Israel worth billions of dollars since the war began.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio arrived in Israel late on Saturday on his first trip to the Middle East. He is expected to push the US president’s widely condemned proposal to displace Palestinians in Gaza during the visit.
Mr Trump first floated the suggestion that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza on January 25th, a notion they strongly opposed. It followed a meeting with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington.
He suggested resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million residents and the US taking control and ownership of the demolished seaside enclave, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Mr Trump last week said Palestinians would not have a right of return to Gaza under his plan, contradicting his own officials who had suggested Gazans would only be relocated temporarily.
The comments comments echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes and were labeled as a form of ethnic cleansing by some critics.
Israel’s military assault on Gaza, now paused by a fragile ceasefire, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in the last 16 months, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and provoked accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.
Mr Rubio will discuss Gaza and the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel during the trip, and will pursue Mr Trump’s approach of trying to disrupt the status quo in the region, a State Department official said. – Reuters
