Despite the opposition and public concerns expressed by the US government about the planned large-scale ground offensive by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip’s Rafah, a city suffocating with nearly 1.5 million refugees, US supplies of ammunition and weapons worth billions continue to flow, the Washington Post noted Friday.

Citing unnamed Pentagon and State Department officials, the newspaper revealed that President Joe Biden’s administration had “tacitly” approved recent deliveries of bombs and fighter jets to Washington’s closest ally in the Middle East.

Munitions whose deliveries have been approved recently include MK84, 900 kg bombs.

Which confirms that the administration of the Democratic president is not considering using the ammunition deliveries as a means of putting pressure on that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The relationship between the two governments has been tense for the last few days.

The US president recently demanded that Israel send a delegation to Washington to discuss the operational plan for Rafah and propose alternatives.

But the Netanyahu government, furious at Washington’s abstention that allowed Monday’s passage of a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, canceled the visit. Before finally informing Washington that “he would like a new date to be agreed” for these talks.

Despite the friction, the Biden administration continues to supply the Israeli army, while its officials and representatives keep repeating that it has pledged to support Israel without asterisks in the war it has been waging since October 7 against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

Last week, the State Department approved the delivery of 25 stealth F-35A fighter jets. As the sale had been approved by Congress in 2008, it was not required to inform parliament again. Deliveries of MK84 and MK82 bombs (nearly 300 kilograms), approved this week, were also given the green light by Congress years ago.

In addition to the increasingly heavy toll of hostilities and the scene of destruction in the Palestinian enclave under siege for the past nearly six months, the majority of the population of 2.4 million are now threatened with famine, according to the UN, which adorns the that the humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip is but a drop in the ocean of the population’s needs.

The war, now in its 176th day, erupted on October 7, when Hamas’ military wing launched an unprecedented attack on southern sectors of the Israeli territory with a stronghold in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,160 people. mostly civilians, according to a count based on official Israeli data. According to Israeli sources, another 250-plus people were abducted that day, of whom more than 130 are believed to be still being held in the enclave — but 34 are believed to be dead.

In retaliation, Israel’s civil-military leadership has vowed to wipe out Hamas, a movement that the US and EU label a “terrorist” organization. In the operations of the Israeli army, at least 32,623 people lost their lives, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the numbers published yesterday by the Health Ministry of Hamas.