US skips congressional review to approve munitions sale to Israel

The U.S. State Department said on Friday it has approved a sale worth $151.8 million to Israel for munitions and munitions support, without submitting it for congressional review.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined an emergency existed that required an immediate sale to Israel, the State Department said, with the announcement coming a week after the U.S. and Israel started their attacks on Iran.

Israel had requested 12,000 BLU-110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bomb bodies, the State Department said in a statement. The principal contractor will be Repkon USA, located in Texas, it said.

The State Department said on Friday that Rubio had determined that the sale is "in the national security interests of the United States."

Democratic U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks said Rubio's decision to use emergency authority to bypass congressional review showed a lack of preparation for the war on Iran.

"The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted it was fully prepared for this war. Rushing to invoke emergency authority to circumvent Congress tells a different story. This is an emergency of the Trump administration's own creation," Meeks said in a statement.

The U.S. and Israel launched an air assault on Iran on February 28 and Iran responded with its own attacks in Israel and regional countries with U.S. bases.

In the last week, U.S. and Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and thousands more have been wounded, according to Iran's U.N. ambassador. Many top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have also been killed.

The U.S. military has said six U.S. service members were killed in a strike on a Kuwait facility, while Israel has said at least 10 civilians have been killed across Israel so far.

Washington has maintained strong support for Israel under President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden during the more than two years of Israeli wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

The Trump administration has also previously made military sales to Israel by skipping congressional reviews, as did the Biden administration when it was in power.

Washington's military support has faced scrutiny from rights experts, particularly during Israel's assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands, caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza's entire population, and led to assessments of genocide from scholars and a U.N. inquiry.

Israel calls its actions self-defense after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in an October 2023 attack.

-Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil/Reuters