Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

$1.8B Arms Sale to Israel Is Approved

The Obama administration approved the sale of $1.8 billion worth of munitions to Israel, including precision guidance devices and bunker-busting bombs.

The sale announced Wednesday by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency includes 14,500 JDAMs, GPS-guided precision kits that attach to bombs.

Also included are 50 BLU-113 bunker-busting bombs, which are capable of penetrating 20 feet of concrete. President Barack Obama first authorized the sale of the bombs in 2009, when Israeli concerns about Iran’s nuclear capability began to intensify.

The package also includes 3,000 Hellfire missiles. The Obama administration suspended the sale of the missiles last summer during Israel’s operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, reportedly out of concern for the mounting civilian casualties in that war.

Obama has sought to assuage regional concerns about an emerging nuclear deal with Iran. Last week he said he would enhance U.S. defense cooperation with a number of Persian Gulf Arab states.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.