Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir will visit Washington, DC next week for talks with senior officials at the Pentagon and the US State Department on the supply of American weapons to Israel, according to two senior Israeli officials.
Senior Israeli officials claim that there have been significant delays in the supply of weapons from the United States in recent weeks and that Israel wants to resolve the issue even before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Senior American officials also firmly deny that any decision was made to delay the supply of weapons to Israel for political reasons. These officials claim that the state of the war in Gaza and Lebanon at the moment does not require the approval of the transfer of weapons in a quick emergency procedure.
Therefore, the approvals are carried out according to the orderly procedure – something that takes time.
Reasons for ceasefire agreement
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the supply of weapons from the United States was one of the reasons for signing the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon at the current time.
“We will receive armaments, some of which were seized from the United States… There were weapons and equipment components that did not reach us and I am sure that they will reach us. It is possible already during the transition period of the administrations,” Netanyahu said in a conversation with associate Yaakov Bardogo that was broadcast on Channel 14 on Thursday.
President Biden’s senior advisor Amos Hochstein, who brokered the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, said in several interviews in recent days that the issue of supplying weapons to Israel did not come up at all in the negotiations.
