The government of the American president, Donald Trump is preparing to sell about 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in exchange for some 2.8 billion dollars, in what would be Washington’s largest transaction with this type of heavy ammunition, according to The Washington Post newspaper.
The government of the American president, Donald Trumpis preparing to sell about 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in exchange for some 2.8 billion dollars, in what would be Washington’s largest transaction with this type of heavy ammunition, according to The Washington Post newspaper.
The shipment includes some 20,000 MK-84 and BLU-117 bombs and another 20,000 units of the I-2000, according to an anonymous official cited by the American newspaper.
All are American munitions of about 900 kilos, designed to be dropped from the air and the first two constitute general purpose bombs, while the I-2000 is a penetrating warhead to attack bunkers and other armored structures.
The magnitude of this package surpasses even similar transactions for Israel carried out by the Joe Biden’s government (which is estimated to have sold some 14,000 of these bombs after the attacks of Hamas October 2023), and even by the Trump Government last year, when it notified that it would transfer just over 39,000 of these weapons.
In turn, the Biden Administration withheld a scheduled transfer of some 1,800 of these bombs in May 2024 due to concerns that Israel could use them in an operation in densely populated areas of Rafah.
A photograph taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows a bomb dropped by an Israeli F-16 aircraft exploding in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, on January 3, 2009. (Photo by PATRICK BAZ/AFP).
/ PATRICK BAZ
This type of ammunition is considered among the most destructive in the US arsenal and Israel has been criticized for frequently using it in Gaza and Lebanon.
Although the operation is considered a sale, the transaction is financed through a mechanism known as Foreign Military Financing (FMF), in which the United States provides taxpayer money that the purchasing countries use to acquire the weapons.
