HAMAS has slammed the US Biden administration’s announcement that it is rushing another $20 billion worth of arms to Israel to escalate its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The package includes new F-15 fighter jets, 50,000 120mm mortar shells and 32,000 120mm tank shells, 30 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles for fighter jets.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visited Washington a few weeks ago to seal the deal, since when he has maintained constant contact with senior Biden administration officials, including Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Israeli and US officials said yesterday that Gallant became a critical partner for the Biden administration during the past two years on a set of issues wider than the war in Gaza that were important to the US, including the West Bank and Lebanon.
‘This helped him in pushing the US to do things that were important for Israel,’ an Israeli official said.
The White House said in a statement that the weapons sales ‘will support Israel’s long-term security by re-supplying stocks of critical munitions and investing in long-term upgrades in capability.
In a statement, the Hamas Palestinian national liberation group said the deal ‘comes within the framework of unlimited support and full adoption of the brutal aggressive behaviour of this rogue entity (Israel) from international regulations and laws’.
‘The continuation of the US administration’s financial and military support to the Zionist entity confirms once again that it is a full partner in the war of genocide, ethnic cleansing and brutal massacres against our Palestinian people,’ Hamas’s statement added.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reports that out of nearly 17,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since October 7, about 2,100 were babies under the age of two.
‘The number of Palestinian children – whether infants or children in general – killed by the Israeli army is horrifying, and the rate of their killing is unprecedented in the history of modern wars,’ said the Geneva-based organisation.
‘It also represents a dangerous trend based on the dehumanisation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s military targets Palestinians and their children daily, methodically, and widely in the most heinous and brutal ways possible, and virtually without pause for 10 consecutive months.’
