Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the United States of withholding weapons for the allied country to confront the terrorist group Hamas in the war that has been waged in the Gaza Strip since October last year.
Netanyahu made the accusation in a short video released by his office this Tuesday (18). “It is inconceivable that in recent months the administration [do presidente democrata Joe Biden] has withheld weapons and ammunition from Israel,” said the prime minister, who suggested that this retention is delaying the offensive against Hamas.
“Give us the tools and we will finish the job much faster,” he said.
Last month, the United States held up a planned arms shipment to Israel while it reviewed the Israeli military operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The shipment of a shipment of 3,500 bombs, weighing around 900 kilograms or 225 kilograms, was suspended.
Biden claimed at the time that US offensive weapons had previously been used against civilians in Gaza, and said that his government would no longer send heavy weapons to Israel if the ground offensive in Rafah took place, only defensive weapons.
Finally, the Israeli action in the city in southern Gaza is taking place, but Netanyahu did not make it clear whether the weapons retention he denounced was related to Biden’s comment.
In the video released this Tuesday, the Israeli Prime Minister alleged that the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on his most recent trip to the Middle East that he was working “nonstop” so that there would be no further delays in sending weapons to Israel. .
However, Blinken himself said this Tuesday that the only weapons shipment to the Israelis blocked for now was 3,500 bombs in May.
“We, as you know, continue to evaluate [o envio ou não de] a shipment that President Biden talked about, of 2,000-pound bombs, because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah,” Blinken said during a State Department press conference, according to ABC News.
“This remains under analysis. But everything else is being done as normal,” she added. Also this Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the Biden administration “does not know what he [Netanyahu] is talking”.
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