Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Wednesday that he would not approve a massive US-funded $2.8 billion transfer of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel that the Trump administration is planning to advance.
“I remain firmly committed to Israel’s security and its ability to defend itself against serious regional threats. But the Trump administration’s proposed sale of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs, some of the most destructive munitions in our arsenal, raises grave, unresolved concerns about how these munitions could be used in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon,” Meeks said in a statement.
“The Trump administration has not provided sufficient assurances that these weapons will be used by the Netanyahu government in accordance with US law and with appropriate protections for civilians. I therefore will not clear this sale at this time,” he added.
Meeks’ statement may not impede the Trump administration’s plans, as it has previously bypassed the congressional review process to arm Israel with 2,000-pound bombs by invoking so-called “emergency authorities” under the Arms Export Control Act.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio did it last year to advance a massive $4 billion arms package for Israel, which included 35,000 2,000-pound bombs. The Trump administration also bypassed Congress this year, back in March, to expedite an arms deal for other types of munitions, including 12,000 BLU-110A/B general-purpose 1,000-pound bomb bodies.
The new weapons package the Trump administration plans to send includes 20,000 MK-84s, 20,000 BLU-117s, and 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, each weighing 2,000 pounds. The deal would be funded by the State Department’s Foreign Military Finance program, under which the US provides foreign governments with money to purchase US weapons.
The planned transfer was first reported by Tucker Carlson, who noted in a post on X Israel’s extensive use of the bombs against civilians in Gaza.
“In the weeks after October 7, the IDF dropped nearly six hundred 2,000-pound bombs on densely populated areas in Gaza, including on more than 100 officially designated civilian evacuation zones. The slaughter was so grotesque and embarrassing that for a moment the Biden administration paused a shipment of Mark 84s. Those shipments quickly resumed under Trump. Now they’ve accelerated,” Carlson said.
