{"id":633572,"date":"2026-10-01T21:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T21:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/633572\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T21:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T21:40:12","slug":"rights-faith-groups-urge-congress-to-block-2-8b-bomb-sale-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/633572\/","title":{"rendered":"Rights, faith groups urge Congress to block $2.8B bomb sale to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 More than 50 human rights, faith-based and foreign-policy organizations are urging Congress to publicly oppose the Trump administration\u2019s proposed $2.8 billion sale to Israel<\/a> of some of the US military\u2019s most destructive conventional weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cFailing to do so would amount to a blank check for further catastrophic harm and human rights violations<\/a>,\u201d groups including Human Rights Watch, Oxfam America, Amnesty International USA and the Episcopal Church said in a letter sent to congressional offices Thursday that was exclusively shared with Al-Monitor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last month, the State Department informally notified key congressional committees that it intends to sell Israel 40,000 2,000-pound MK-84 and BLU-117 bombs, whose wide blast radius can devastate large areas. The package also includes 20,000 bunker-busting I-2000 penetrator warheads that are used to strike deeply buried targets. Most of the package would be funded via Foreign Military Financing, a US program that provides Israel and other partners with taxpayer-funded aid to purchase American-made weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Israeli government has used these bombs to devastating effect\u201d during its ongoing conflicts against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the letter reads.\u00a0US and international media outlets as well as the United Nations’ human rights office have documented Israel\u2019s use of 2,000-pound munitions that caused massive craters in parts of Gaza that were designated \u201csafe\u201d for civilians, as well as in densely populated areas of Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 More than 50 human rights, faith-based and foreign-policy organizations are urging Congress to publicly oppose the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-633572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}