Brown University’s Costs of War project has calculated that the U.S. has provided Israel with $17.9 billion worth of military assistance in the past year, according to a widely circulated AP story on the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack into southern Israel. Even when adjusted for inflation, that is the largest amount of U.S. assistance to Israel for any year since 1959. Another $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up U.S. military operations in the region over the same time period.
The U.S. aid since the Gaza war started includes military financing, arms sales, at least $4.4 billion in drawdowns from U.S. stockpiles and hand-me-downs of used equipment. Much of the U.S. weapons delivered in the year were munitions, from artillery shells to 2,000-pound bunker-busters and precision-guided bombs. Expenditures range from $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems to cash for rifles and jet fuel, the study says.
Unlike the United States’ publicly documented military aid to Ukraine, it was impossible to get the full details of what the U.S. has shipped to Israel since last Oct. 7, so the $17.9 billion for the year is a partial figure, the researchers said. They cited the Biden administration’s “efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering.”
In a separate AP report, Associated Press provides the numbers over the past year in Gaza. The figures for the destruction of infrastructure (most of the other numbers are well known already) are notable but probably don’t even begin to tell the full story, particularly on the implications for the future for the people of Gaza:
• Percentage of primary roads damaged or destroyed: Over 92
