Trump administration’s plan to ship a $2.8bn bomb sale to Israel sparks criticism over mass concentrating on of civilians within the area.
Revealed On 16 Sep 2026
The Trump administration is getting ready to promote Israel a $2.8bn package deal of 907kg (2,000-pound) bombs, the biggest single sale of the munition in recent times, in line with experiences by the Washington Put up and the AFP information company.
The package deal, funded by way of International Navy Financing – a mechanism by which Washington supplies the cash Israel then makes use of to purchase US weapons – contains 40,000 bombs: 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, a thermally coated variant of the MK-84 designed for safer naval storage, together with I-2000 Penetrator warheads constructed to strike hardened, underground buildings.
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In accordance with the Put up, the MK-84, nicknamed the “hammer” by US pilots within the first Gulf Battle, is among the many most damaging munitions in Western arsenals, sending steel fragments outward for a whole bunch of metres and able to tearing by way of thick concrete.
“An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile,” conservative commentator Tucker Carlson wrote on X, citing an unnamed federal official. “It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the floor of the solar… The bomb collapses residence buildings and leaves craters thirty-five toes deep.”
The deal has been informally notified to congressional committees.
The Put up reported {that a} senior administration official stated solely that “all overseas arms gross sales are shifting by way of the suitable course of,” whereas the State Division stated it doesn’t touch upon proposed gross sales earlier than formal notification to Congress.
Israel has used 907kg bombs a whole bunch of occasions in Gaza and Lebanon, together with in areas it had designated protected for civilians, drawing sustained criticism from rights teams.
Former US President Joe Biden’s administration paused a single such cargo in 2024 over civilian casualty considerations – the one munition it withheld throughout the Gaza genocide – earlier than Trump reversed that pause in his first month again in workplace.
The sale lands amid rising pressure between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and rising bipartisan unease in Washington over unconditional army assist.
US Senator Chris Van Hollen stated he would work to dam the sale, accusing Trump of “sending bombs paid for by American taxpayers to a authorities led by a wished struggle legal”.
Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote: “We didn’t vote for this. America doesn’t assist this. Our tax {dollars} and weapons have been used to kill tens of hundreds of harmless folks.”
Carlson known as the roughly $3bn package deal “a present” to the Israeli authorities, which is “working to exterminate an unarmed civilian inhabitants in Gaza”, calling for senators and US lawmakers to dam the deal.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program on the Worldwide Disaster Group, stated the sale “sends a vote of confidence to Israel”, even when unintentionally, at a second when the administration says it desires to calm the area. Analysts see the timing as deliberate on Israel’s half, in search of to lock in expansive US army backing now, cautious {that a} future administration might show much less reliably unconditional.
