Biden pauses bombs shipment to Israel over humanitarian concerns in Gaza

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has paused the shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel over concerns they could be used in a major military operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million refugees have been sheltering, a senior U.S. official said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the pause at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. "As we have assessed the situation, we have paused one shipment of high payload munitions," he said.

"We've not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment," he added.

The administration began a review of some weapons transfers to Israel last month, a senior U.S. official said. The president then paused a shipment of 1,800 2,000-lb bombs and 1,700 500-lb bombs last week, as Israel ramped up plans for a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city. Hamas fighters and Israeli troops battled on Wednesday on the outskirts of Rafah.

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President Joe Biden has been grappling with a pledge to support Israel militarily no matter what and concerns that the U.S. ally is not doing enough to protect civilian lives in Gaza.  

The State Department was due to issue a report to Congress on Wednesday assessing Israel's treatment of civilians in its war against Hamas, before acknowledging that it was likely to miss the self-imposed deadline by a day or more.

Democratic lawmakers have pushed the Biden administration to obtain fresh assurances the ally is not violating U.S. policy and international humanitarian law in Gaza as the administration evaluates its military support for Israel.

But the admission on Wednesday that there was a review taking place prompted a wave of complaints from Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The GOP leaders chastised Biden in a Wednesday letter for not informing them sooner and demanded to know when the review would be completed.

"This news flies in the face of assurances provided regarding the timely delivery of security assistance to Israel," they argued.

The White House reiterated on Tuesday that Biden's support for Israel is ironclad. And the president has himself said there is no red line over which he would cut off all aid to Israel.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari also described coordination between Israel and the U.S. as reaching "a scope without precedent, I think, in history" while speaking at a Wednesday conference.

"We are responsible for the security interests of Israel and we pay attention to the U.S. interests in the arena,” he said.

But with Israel drawing closer to making a decision on Rafah, the Biden administration says its concerns about humanitarian access have not been fully addressed. More than 33,000 Palestinians have died in the war, and last week a United Nations official said northern Gaza is suffering from famine.

The Democratic president is facing pressure from lawmakers within his party to reconsider arms shipments and promised earlier this year to issue report by May 8.

He said in a February memo that did not mention Israel that his administration would collect "credible and reliable written assurances" from countries the U.S. gives or sells weapons to that they are adhering to U.S. policy and following international humanitarian law.

He also pledged to "provide periodic congressional reports to enable meaningful oversight" and said "remediation could include actions from refreshing the assurances to suspending any further transfers of defense articles or, as appropriate, defense services."

U.S. policy prevents the transfer of arms that "risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law."

"If a transfer had previously been authorized and circumstances have changed in ways that would materially increase the risk" of serious violations, the administration's policy is to "re-assess and, as appropriate, review options for ceasing the transfer of or support for a previous authorization."

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Democrats in Congress worried over US weapons killing civilians

In a letter to Biden last Friday, House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., and House Foreign Affairs Committee member Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., pushed for fresh assurances from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his government is abiding by U.S. conditions.

The letter came on the heels of a bipartisan bill that Congress passed and the president signed authorizing more military aid to Israel.

"The security assistance included in the recently passed security supplemental should not be interpreted as a blank check or as implicit approval of the Netanyahu government’s actions," the lawmakers wrote.

Rep. Madeline Dean, D-Pa., was among the 88 Democrats who signed the letter, which argued there is "sufficient evidence" that Israel's conduct in Gaza has triggered consideration of a suspension of offensive weapons transfers.

"We can be two things at one time: we can be a great ally and supporter of Israel, even as we can be critical of how this war has been prosecuted," Dean, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told USA TODAY. "The inability to get adequate humanitarian aid is grave."

Biden had a call on Monday with Netanyahu in which the U.S. says he reiterated his opposition to a Rafah invasion that risks civilian lives and pushed Israel to reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing for humanitarian aid following a weekend Hamas attack.

Israeli's military subsequently launched an operation into Rafah that the U.S. says was limited and designed to cut off Hamas' ability to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

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"We have been talking about violations of international law and every single time that we think we're doing something on accountability, we see that Netanyahu has no respect for accountability," Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., a member of the progressive "Squad," said. "So I expect that the report is going to show a lot of the ways that us transferring arms to them has actually unfortunately resulted in the killing of civilians."

Once Congress has the report, she added, Biden should "actually do something with that information."

It is not entirely clear when the Biden administration intends to submit the report.

State Department spokesman Matt Miller said Wednesday that the administration is working to finalize the report.

"We expect to deliver it in the very near future, in the coming days," Miller told reporters.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday the White House takes its obligations to Congress seriously and plans to meet them. "We will always review our Gaza policy. And ... if that policy needs to change based on events, then we won't be shy about changing it," he added.

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Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Foreign Affairs Committee member and one of only two Democratic senators to vote against the foreign aid bill over concerns about Israel aid, said it is "incredibly important" that the administration produce a report that brings "the law and the facts to bear in a full and competent manner."

Biden warned Netanyahu in an early April call that the U.S. could make policy changes if the country did not take concrete steps to address his administration's humanitarian concerns.

In a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, Kirby said "a lot more work" needs to be done for Israel to meet his expectations.

"I would not say that everything has been sufficient to date. Clearly there's still great humanitarian need and great risk for the people that are trying to get that assistance to to those in need," he said.

But since that conversation, the Israelis have taken steps to open up additional crossings and the U.S. has observed a sustained increase in the number of aid trucks, he said.

"And we had seen evidence that they were working harder to improve their deconfliction processes to restore some of the some of the trust that they...lost with humanitarian aid organizations on the ground," he said. "But I again want to stress it's not enough."