The heavy bombs that President Biden refrained from sending to Israel have been a major point of controversy in the Gaza war, as a key tool in Israel’s decimation of the territory.
Biden has halted a shipment of about 3,500 bombs, which includes heavy 2,000-pound versions along with lighter 500-pound munitions. Both were used to devastating effect in Gaza, areas of which were reduced to rubble.
Israel says the bombs are essential to destroy Hamas targets, but the Biden administration has drawn limits on their use in any large-scale offensive on the densely populated city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
Human rights groups have said for months that U.S. bombs in Gaza have inflicted a heavy toll on civilians and have pointed to instances of indiscriminate Israeli attacks — and some Democrats say Biden should have stopped providing them sooner.
“For months, I have strongly urged the Biden administration to prioritize Israel’s defensive needs… over offensive weapons that could cause enormous suffering in Gaza and further increase tensions throughout the region.”, Senator Tim Kaine (D- Va.) said in a statement last week.
Stephen Miles, president of the progressive advocacy group Win Without War, said 2,000-pound bombs have a “dramatic effect” when dropped on dense areas, and by using them, Israel is “knowingly taking steps” that lead to “the deaths of innocent people”.
“There is no way to use these bombs in the Gaza Strip without causing massive damage,” he said. “The ammunition was designed for maximum depth of destruction. It was not designed for use in compact communities in dense urban environments.”
Even before the Gaza war, the US was supposed to deliver around $3 billion a year to Israel by 2028. That figure is now expected to be much higher after Congress approved billions more last month at the request of Biden, to help Israel’s fight to eliminate the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
More than 100 US foreign military sales have been approved for Israel since October 7when Hamas invaded southern Israel, it killed around 1,200 people and took around 250 others hostage.
This military aid includes artillery shells, air defense munitions and bombs, along with combat aircraft and small arms that Israel has used against Hamas and the Hezbollah military and political group in Lebanon, along with other Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East. East.
The US standard conventional bombs are the Mark 80 series, ranging from the Mark 81 weighing 250 pounds to the Mark 84 weighing 2,000 pounds. They are dropped from aircraft at targets.
Israel uses bombs as part of its strategy to defeat Hamas, which uses hidden tunnels and networks in Gaza to hide forces, weapons and equipment.
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer, said Israel chose to place troops on the ground in sensitive areas, including hospitals, rather than drop bombs. But in challenging situations, such as deep underground locations, it is more effective to drop heavier bombs.
“There is [some] areas where the use of these bombs is more efficient and more justified, at least from a military point of view, to neutralize these targets”, he stated.
But heavier bombs generally cause more devastation, creating a greater impact when they hit the ground, and their use has helped increase the toll in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have died in the seven-month war.
In an interview with CNN earlier this week, Biden said he would not provide offensive weapons to Israel if troops moved to Rafah — where more than a million civilians are sheltering from the war, along with Hamas battalions.
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a result of these bombs and other ways they attack population centers,” Biden told CNN earlier this week.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters the U.S. was looking at the 2,000-pound bombs in the context of Rafah.
“We are focused on the end use, especially the end use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in a dense urban environment, as we have seen in other parts of Gaza,” he said on Thursday. . “This is something we will continue to look into.”
The bomb control – and the threat to suspend more weapons – angered Israel, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising to continue fighting alone if necessary.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told CNN this week that bombs can “sometimes” cause collateral damage, but argued that this was a fact in all wars and accused Hamas of using human shields in Gaza.
“Is Israel using bombs to target civilians? Absolutely not. Never. We never target civilians,” he said. “In fact, we have the lowest proportion of collateral damage in the history of urban warfare. About, say, 32,000 Palestinians died. Half of them are terrorists. This is 1 for 1.”
“In Afghanistan, in Iraq, it was 1 to 9. For every terrorist you killed, there were six, seven, eight, nine civilians,” he added. “We are striving to avoid unnecessary deaths. Otherwise, we would finish everything in three days if we didn’t care about it.”
The Hamas-run health agency does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its casualty figures, and some monitors have given much lower estimates of the proportion of fighters in the total death toll.
Human rights groups and media reports have highlighted several cases of misuse of US bombs in Gaza.
International humanitarian law does not prohibit the use of heavy bombs in war, but the parties to the conflict must avoid indiscriminate attacks and are required to take feasible precautions to prevent civilian deaths.
CNN reported in December that hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs were used in the first month of the war, creating about 500 different craters 40 feet in diameter. At least one incident involved a major air bomb attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in late October that killed more than 100 people.
And the New York Times also reported in December that 2,000-pound bombs were dropped on areas of southern Gaza where civilians were told to move for safety.
Amnesty International identified several attacks which he claimed were illegal and involved US bombs.
Amanda Klasing, national director for government relations at Amnesty International USA, said some of the 2,000-pound bombs have “destroyed entire families” and because the bombs are “so big,” it is difficult to minimize collateral damage.
“There is no clear indication that there is a desire to actually apply international law to the use of these weapons,” she said of the Israeli military. “The risk is still high for the transfer of these weapons to the Israeli government.”
Amnesty also raised concerns about Israel issuing 24-hour mass evacuation warnings and limited advance warning before airstrikes.
To reduce casualties, a 2,000-pound or 500-pound “dumb” bomb can also be equipped with Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, which convert the unguided munition into a precision-guided “smart” bomb.
Klasing said JDAMs and smaller bombs still pose a high risk if not used correctly.
“The ability to be more precise must be combined with the intentionality to follow international humanitarian law,” she said. Likewise, “if we don’t change the pattern of use of these weapons and just change the size of the weapon, that won’t really align us with international humanitarian law.”
A State Department analysis released Friday concluded that it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel violated international humanitarian law in Gaza, but did not reach a definitive conclusion of wrongdoing because the analysis found no specific cases of violations.
Israel and its allies often respond to criticism of the death toll in Gaza by pointing to Hamas’ tactics of operating in areas with dense civilian populations.
Melamed, the former Israeli intelligence official, said Hamas often operates in “deliberately open areas” because fighters know “that this way collateral damage is inevitable.”
“Israel is defending itself and basically operating to remove the threat in a very challenging environment,” he said, “which is a massively urban environment where its enemy is using its own brothers and sisters – literally, its own brothers – as a human shield. .”
The debate precedes a potential invasion of Rafah, where Israeli troops have already entered for limited operations and taken control of an important border crossing with Egypt.
Gaza is a densely populated area, but some 1.3 million Palestinians are crammed into Rafah, and the city could face unprecedented destruction in the event of a massive Israeli operation, said Miles of Win Without War.
“The reason we see the concerns about Rafah is because, as horrific as what we have already seen, the scale [of potential large fighting] there is something almost unimaginably worse,” he said.
“That’s why it was encouraging to see the president finally take action. But I think we are very far from the end.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
