A shipment of heavy bombs from the United States has arrived in Israel, as Marco Rubio visits the country on his first official trip to the region since becoming US Secretary of State.
The munitions were sent after President Donald Trump’s administration last month lifted a hold on the deliveries, Israel’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday.
Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz said the shipment of MK-84 munitions “represents a significant asset for the Air Force and the IDF and serves as further evidence of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States,” in a statement from his ministry. Katz thanked Trump and the US administration for their “unwavering support.”
The new administration’s release of the heavy bomb shipments rolled back one of the few Biden-era policies meant to exert leverage on Israel during its war in Gaza. Former President Joe Biden had restricted the delivery of the 2,000-pound bombs out of concern they could be used indiscriminately by Israel’s military in densely populated areas of Gaza.
Despite causing tensions between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the move did not portend any major changes in the war. Nor did it significantly improve Biden’s standing among critics of the war, who argued for significantly tighter restrictions on American arms sales to Israel.
The head of Gaza’s Government Media Office Salama Maroof criticized the US decision to send the heavy bombs. “Instead of sending food, medicine, water, or shelter and building materials to the victims in the Gaza Strip, even with a humanitarian motive, the United States of America, the first democracy in the world and a pioneer of human rights, as it describes itself, supports the criminal occupation army with 1,800 heavy MK bombs,” Maroof said.
Rubio landed in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, where he was greeted by Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on the first leg of his trip to the region. He is meeting with Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem Sunday morning, where US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to “take over” the Gaza Strip is likely to come under discussion.
It also comes a day after three Israeli hostages were released by Hamas as part of a US-mediated ceasefire agreement.
Before his meeting with Netanyahu, Secretary Rubio attended mass at the historic Church of the Holy Sepulchre, according to a State Department official. A news conference is expected later today.
Rubio is also scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as part of his travels.