Washington – U.S. Defends Supplying Israel Ammunition During Gaza Conflict

    3

     An Israeli soldier prays next to a stockpile of tank shells as another re-arms his tank at a staging area inside southern Israel along the Gaza Strip border, 31 July 2014.  EPAWashington – The United States on Thursday called on Israel to do more to protect civilians in its military offensive in Gaza and condemned an Israeli strike on a U.N.-run school, even as it defended moves to resupply its close ally with ammunition.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    The White House reiterated its position that it was Israel’s right to defend itself and described the resupply of ammunition disclosed as the fighting raged this week as “routine.”

    White House spokesman Josh Earnest rejected suggestions that resupplying the Israelis might prolong the conflict, saying it was “part of a routine foreign military sales delivery.”

    “The requested items were readily available and were provided as they have been on numerous other occasions,” Earnest said.

    The U.S. officials spoke shortly before the United States and the United Nations jointly announced a 72-hour ceasefire and an agreement for Israeli and Palestinian delegations to meet in Cairo to seek a “durable ceasefire.”

    Gaza officials say more than 1,410 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the enclave. Israel says 56 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed.

    Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren denounced the mounting death toll, saying: “The civilian casualties in Gaza have been too high.”

    “And it’s become clear that the Israelis need to do more to live up to their very high standards – their very high and very public standards – for protecting civilian life,” Warren said.

    The Pentagon has said it allowed Israel to tap a U.S. stockpile inside Israel to restock two different types of ammunition.

    It described the munitions on Thursday as 120 mm tank rounds and 40 mm illumination rounds, fired from grenade launchers. A U.S. defense official had offered a different description of the ammunition on Wednesday, saying they were grenades and mortar rounds.

    The Pentagon said it was unclear if the munitions would be used for training or operations.

    The munitions were part of a program managed by the U.S. military and called War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I), which stores munitions locally for U.S. use that Israel can also access in emergency situations.

    Although Israel did not cite an emergency situation, the United States decided to draw some munitions from the stockpile anyway to rotate out older arms. “This is simply a rotating (of) munitions out of the stockpile in order to get newer munitions placed in there,” Warren said.


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    3 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    Shlomo-1
    Shlomo-1
    9 years ago

    Disingenuous at best. Do it or don’t do it. You can’t hide behind “oh, this is routine.”
    And you either support Israel’s efforts at limiting civilian casualties or not.
    If you think Israel is not limiting civilian casualties, then jump on the band wagon…but don’t be surprised when the US is held to that standard in the future.

    Liepa
    Liepa
    9 years ago

    Colonel Warren, I was gonna call you ‘Armchair General Warren’ but since you’re only a colonel, here goes, ‘Armchair Colonel Warren’!

    shimonhatzadik
    shimonhatzadik
    9 years ago

    I have seen no indication from Kerry or Obama that America’s position is anything other than full support of Israel to defend itself. It’s just the media and Europe that seems either pareve or leaning toward Israel backing out.