Sharon Zhang
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.
Smoke
rises from a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike at the Bureij
camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on January 12,
2025. Eyad Baba / AFP via Getty Images
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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