Delay in U.S. Arms Shipments to Israel Sparks Fears and Leads to Talk of Self-reliance

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(Bloomberg) — As Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza grows more controversial, arms suppliers including Italy, Spain and Canada have all halted their sales. But that didn’t matter as long as the US continued deliveries.

About 70% of Israel’s military imports come from the United States, which has made more than 200 shipments since the conflict began in October. Washington’s decision to withhold some 3,500 bombs this week was therefore seen as an important and rarely used warning.

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“American weapons, and especially precision bombs, are the bread and butter of our warfare in Gaza and future operations,” said Matan Kahana, an Israeli centrist lawmaker and former F-16 squadron commander.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refrained from making a public statement about the delay in the US shipment, which came amid concerns in Washington about a possible Israeli offensive against the Gaza town of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge. Still, the leader has been warning for some time about the risks of relying too heavily on others to meet his growing military needs.

Read more: Why Israel’s plans to invade Rafah are so worrying: QuickTake

Three months ago, he ordered the country’s defense and finance ministers to develop a plan to “strengthen Israel’s defense industry for decades to come.” This will require “major investments to ensure our security independence and freedom of action,” he said.

Building a defense industry that includes local production lines for aerial munitions now supplied by the United States is likely to be a major challenge, especially in the short term. Little has happened so far. Treasury officials said teams have been put together but there is no framework or deadline.

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Despite rapid decision-making and urgent investments, nothing could be achieved in time to independently maintain the intensity of Israel’s seven-month bombardment of the Gaza Strip in pursuit of Hamas, alongside the almost daily exchange of fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and last month’s direct confrontation with Iran .

Read more: Preventing Iran’s missile attack likely cost more than $1 billion

Defense innovation

Israel’s defense procurement policy was introduced in the early 1990s by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who argued that self-sufficiency was a mirage when even locally developed weapons required foreign components. He limited local production of expensive items and tried to buy everything possible abroad, concentrating Israeli industry on what was unavailable or did not exist for political or military reasons. This was called the “boutique industrial policy” and helped Israel become a world leader in defense innovation.

At the same time, Israel relied heavily on other countries, increasingly the United States and Germany, for fighter aircraft, submarines, warships and aerial artillery. Major weapons deliveries to Israel due at the end of 2023 included 61 combat aircraft from the USA and four submarines from Germany.

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Zeev Landau, head of the Defense Ministry’s procurement department, said in a recent newspaper interview that Israel’s goal for the day after the Gaza war was independence, “mainly in the area of ​​aircraft bombs, which are currently being purchased entirely by the United States.”

He added that Israel wants “a mechanism that will maintain, over time, the minimum order quantities necessary to maintain an economical production line.” He expects the preparations to take at least two to three years.

Landau named Elbit Systems Ltd. – which had taken over the former Israeli military industry – as the most suitable company for the production of aerial bombs. The group’s new factory in Ramat Beka in southern Israel has been marked as the intended production site and is scheduled to open later this year.

“We are also in the process of deciding which of the raw materials needed for bomb production should be produced in Israel,” said Landau. “Here, too, we strive for independence. We will prioritize raw materials that we produce ourselves, or we will keep strategic stocks of them in Israel – such as fuel, for which there is an emergency stockpile.”

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US trust

Until then, Israel will continue to rely on the United States, particularly for its air force, according to a recent Treasury Department report. It details the medium and long-term purchase orders that Israel has placed in local and foreign markets.

A total of 5.6 billion shekels ($1.5 billion) – 97% of what Israel will spend on ammunition by 2029 – will go to the US army or an unnamed US company. Two-thirds of the defense contracts scheduled for delivery by 2027 come from the US Army and an unnamed US company with a total value of 2.1 billion shekels. A third of the warheads Israel has ordered and will be delivered this year and next are from the US Air Force, costing a total of 289 million shekels.

All of this has now been the subject of intense discussion since a senior US official confirmed on Wednesday that Washington has stopped supplying bombs, split roughly equally between 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) and 500-pound explosives. According to the official, the US has not yet made a final decision on whether to proceed with the delivery.

Israel’s seven-month-long war in Gaza began when Hamas militants invaded the south of the country, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others. The Israeli counteroffensive has left about 35,000 dead, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Iran-backed Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.

– With support from Julius Domoney.

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