US arms manufacturers expect hike in weapons purchases by Israel: Report

US arms manufacturers are expecting an increased demand from Israel, which has launched a war of aggression on the Palestinian people in Gaza, according to a report.  

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the United States will boost its shipments of Iron Dome interceptor missiles and other weapons to the occupying regime.

The report said that US arms manufacturers are preparing to speed up the delivery of desperately needed ammunition to the Tel Aviv regime to be used against Palestinians in the impoverished enclave, which has been under Israel’s brutal bombardment for the past ten days.

It added that unlike Ukraine, which is receiving hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, Israel is primarily interested in ammunition, particularly Iron Dome missiles which are used almost on a daily basis to intercept rockets fired from Gaza by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group, as well as air-to-ground missiles and tank ammunition.

Citing some analysts, FT said US weapons manufacturers are already under pressure to supply arms and military equipment to Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since February last year, stressing that sending more arms to Israel will add strain to a stretched military industrial base.

According to the report, Israel’s army may also require missile systems currently in short supply in Ukraine, including armed drones and 155mm artillery shells.

However, American President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel for a short visit on Wednesday, has pledged to provide Israel and Ukraine with all the ammunition they need, insisting over the weekend that the US can meet the demand and maintain the Pentagon's readiness for other contingencies, such as a potential conflict with China over Taiwan.

In response to the question of whether the US can simultaneously handle the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, Biden, in an interview conducted last week, claimed that the US can do that.

“We're the United States of America for God's sake, the most powerful nation in history-- not in the world, in the history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense,” he said in a 60 Minutes interview with CBS News.

This is while analysts say that Russia’s war on Ukraine alerted the US defense industry, which had been de-emphasizing the production of weaponry needed in traditional land wars and focusing instead more on technologically advanced surveillance and reconnaissance systems needed for counter-terrorism missions and deterring China in the Pacific.

“The goal of supporting industry suggests that if we send these weapons to Israel, we’ll definitely have to kick-start another part of the industrial base, perhaps faster than we thought,” Cynthia Cook at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank, told FT.

Factbox: Bombing of Gaza hospital not first time Israel has targeted hospitals

The devastating bombing of a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday night is not the first time the Israeli regime has targeted health facilities. It has for years been bombing hospitals and killing medics.

According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Israel also spends heavily on American weapons, having purchased roughly $53.5 billion worth over the past seven decades, including $6.5 billion in the five years to 2022.

US officials expect the Israeli regime will require further interceptors beyond those already included in the US’s lethal aid package for Tel Aviv.

Nearly 3,500 people have been killed in more than 10 days of Israeli airstrikes and shelling against Gaza, a coastal enclave with a population of 2.3 million people on the Mediterranean Sea.

The Israeli attacks on Gaza began on October 7 after the Gaza-based Hamas launched waves of attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories, killing 1,400 settlers and military forces. 

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