US President Joe Biden’s administration informed Congress on Tuesday of a $1 billion weapons package for Israel, official sources told a foreign news agency, a week after threatening to withhold some arms over concerns of a Rafah assault. The administration informally notified the weapons package to Congress, which will need to approve it, a US official said, while a congressional aide who also requested anonymity said the weapons bought from US weapons makers amounted to around $1 billion. The weapons would come out of a major $95 billion package recently approved by Congress in defense support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and the Biden administration has repeatedly said it planned to go ahead and appropriate the funds through purchases from US manufacturers. But the deal comes a week after Biden warned he may withhold bombs and artillery shells to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went ahead in defiance of US warnings with an assault on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million Palestinians have taken shelter after half a year of war.—INP
