US releases $3.5 billion in military aid to Israel

The financing is part of the $14.1 billion in supplemental funding approved by Congress in April.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The U.S. is releasing $3.5 billion in military aid to Israel, the State Department announced Friday, as part of the $14.1 billion in supplemental funding approved by Congress in April.

According to the report, this tranche of the money is to be used to pay for weapons and military equipment that are currently being manufactured for the IDF in the U.S.

Although it does not pay for military supplies for immediate use by the IDF in its ongoing war against the Hamas terrorist organization, it helps Israel by removing a budgetary concern in the near future.

It is unknown when the rest of the appropriated funding will be released.

The aid was ratified in the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act as part of a $95 billion package of support for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. The Ukrainian portion totaled over $60 billion.

The bill also included $9 billion in humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.

American military equipment of one kind or another has been arriving in Israel since the Iranian proxy Hamas terror organization sparked the current war by invading Gazan envelope communities and a dance rave on October 7, 2023, massacring 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and taking 252 hostage, including the bodies of those they murdered.

The Biden administration is has vowed to provide Israel with “ironclad support” now that the Jewish state is under direct threat from Iran, due to the assassination 12 days ago of Hamas political head Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, although Israel did not take credit for the deed.

The U.S. Navy has put a formidable carrier force in the Gulf of Oman that can monitor Iranian activity from close by and help protect Israel from a missile attack like Tehran initiated in April.

The U.S.S. Lincoln aircraft carrier group steaming full force to the region, while several destroyers with anti-missile systems are already present. An amphibious assault ship, the U.S.S. Wasp, docked last week in nearby Cyprus.

A squadron of the advanced F-22 Raptor fighter jets has also arrived at an undisclosed site in the area, flying thousands of miles from their base in Alaska. This is in addition to four other groups of American fighter jets that have moved much closer to the region.

The Raptors’ arrival “sends a clear message to the region that we want to reduce tensions, and it sends a very powerful message of deterrence,” said US Department of Defense spokesperson Sabrina Sing.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Friday and told him that “the U.S. will defend Israel if attacked,” although the Americans still hope that the show of force, as well as a strong diplomatic push, will lead Tehran to minimize its retaliation so as not to widen the conflict further afield in the Middle East.

Iranian threatIsrael-Hamas warU.S. aid Israel