US provided Israel with $6.5 billion in aid during Gaza war – report

Biden administration pushes back on accusations it has withheld military aid from Israel in wartime, telling Israeli officials it provided whopping $3 billion in aid last month alone.

By World Israel News Staff

The United States provided Israel with some $6.5 billion in military aid since October 7th, the Biden administration has claimed, according to a report by The Washington Post Wednesday.

Citing senior U.S. officials, the report claimed that American aid to Israel last month alone came close to $3 billion – approaching the total military aid the U.S. gives the Jewish state in a year during peacetime.

“This is a massive, massive undertaking,” one senior Biden administration official told reporters.

The Biden administration reportedly presented the figures to Israeli officials during Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s meetings in Washington.

Gallant, who entered politics on the centrist Kulanu ticket before joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, touted what he claimed was “significant progress” made on the issue of American arms transfers, after meeting with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

“During the meetings we made significant progress, obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed, in order to advance a variety of issues, and more specifically the topic of force build-up and munition supply that we must bring to the State of Israel,” Gallant said.

Ever since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Biden administration of withholding weapons or slow-walking arms transfers to Israel during the Gaza war, the White House has sought to rebut the Israeli leader’s claims, with senior officials downplaying the decreased rate of transfers and citing a complex “bureaucratic system” for weapons exports.

One senior Biden administration official said the “bottlenecks” were the result of a “complicated” system put in place to make “sure we fully fulfill all of our obligations to Congress, laws, procedures and regulations.”