In spite of tensions between Tel Aviv and Washington, the United States will loan $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US weapons and military equipment. In the meantime, the Israeli military struck the Al-Tabain school in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 100 people.
The State Department notified lawmakers late Thursday night that the Biden administration intended to provide Israel with billions of dollars in foreign military funding, CNN said. The funds come from a $14.1 billion supplemental funding bill for Israel that passed Congress in April, but Tel Aviv will not immediately receive $3.5 billion worth of US-made weapons. Israel will thus be eligible to use the funding to buy advanced weapons systems and other equipment from the US under the foreign military financing programme.
The US is stepping up the funding amid how Israel and the wider region have been bracing for an attack by Iran and Hezbollah following Israel’s assassinations of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Tehran and Beirut earlier this month. In addition, US diplomats and the Biden administration are pushing peace efforts in the region along with providing arms.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a conversation with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi regarding efforts to achieve the ceasefire between the warring parties. “The Secretary and Foreign Minister Safadi discussed the joint statement by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar which called for an immediate ceasefire to provide relief to both Palestinians in Gaza and the hostages and their families,” according to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
100 killed in an IDF strike
Early Saturday morning, the Israeli defence army bombed Al-Tabain school in Al-Daraj neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, leaving at least 100 Palestinians killed and dozens injured. In turn, Israel rejected accusations of striking civilians, saying the school housed the operational military headquarters for Hamas. According to the Israeli side, the military took some steps to minimise the risk of harm to civilians.
The media placed “full responsibility for the massacre on the Israeli occupation and the US administration” and urged the international community and global organisations to “put pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of civilians and displaced people in the Gaza Strip.”
The bombing brings the total number of schools targeted by the Israeli army in Gaza over the past week to six, but Israel has denied some of the strikes, saying the targets were military groups that were housed in school buildings. Since the cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Israeli borders, Tel Aviv’s retaliatory counter-offensive has claimed more than 39,700 lives in Gaza, while vast swathes of Gaza lie in ruins under a blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
