Biden administration approves $20 billion in weapons, aircraft sales to Israel as Hamas says it won’t participate in talks

The U.S. has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles, the State Department announced Tuesday, two days before scheduled cease-fire talks begin in the region. A Hamas representative told CBS News on Tuesday that 

Congress was notified of the impending sale, which had been expected since April and comes at a time of intense concern that Israel may become involved in a wider Middle East war. The package includes up to 50 F-15 fighter jets, up to 30 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, tactical vehicles and large numbers of tank cartridges and high explosive mortar cartridges. 

However, the weapons are not expected to get to Israel right away, or even this year, with delivery dates ranging from 2026 to 2029. Earlier this year, multiple lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, planned to object to the sale.

The items are intended to maintain and build Israel’s overall long-term defensive capability, and most of the items will be delivered in installments over the course of several years, a State Department official told CBS News. The F-15s, for example, will be manufactured by Boeing and take at least a decade to deliver in full, the official said. 

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” the State Department said in a release on the sale.

The Biden administration has had to balance its continued support for Israel with a growing number of calls from lawmakers and the U.S. public to curb military support there due to the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza. It has curbed one delivery of 2,000-pound weapons amid continued airstrikes by Israel in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza.

The contracts will cover not only the sale of new 50 aircraft to be produced by Boeing. It will also include upgrade kits for Israel to modify its existing fleet of two dozen F-15 fighter jets with new engines and radars, among other upgrades. The jets comprise more than $18 billion of the $20 billion in sales.

The sale came ahead of Thursday’s cease-fire talks, coordinated by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar. A Hamas representative told CBS News Tuesday that Hamas would not attend, though they would continue negotiations, because they have not received assurances through negotiators that Israel will commit to work on the basis of Hamas’ July 2 proposal. 

“We are serious on reaching an agreement, as it is our responsibility towards our people to stop the massacres and the famine that war and the occupation are committing against our people,” Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, Ahmad Abdul Hadi, said to CBS News in a statement in Arabic. 

“We are not against the concept of negotiations,” Hadi said, adding that despite receiving reassurances Hamas’ July 2 proposal would be taken seriously, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and his government rejected it, put new conditions, they assassinated the head of our movement, they committed a massacre in Al-Tabeen school and continue their massacres.” 

U.S. officials said the U.S. is prepared to offer a “final bridging proposal” at the cease-fire talks to find common ground between Hamas and Israel, while U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the U.S. moving military assets into the Middle East was not a sign that broader regional conflict is inevitable.

The announcement of the weapons sale also came weeks after Netanyahu doubled down on his claims that the U.S. had been withholding weapons deliveries for Israel’s war effort in Gaza, despite the Biden administration denying the claim.

On June 23, Netanyahu told his Cabinet that there had been a “dramatic drop” in U.S. weapons about four months prior, without specifying which weapons. Those comments came just days after he released a video in English claiming there had been weeks of unsuccessful pleas with American officials to speed up deliveries.