Rubio announces $4 billion in military aid to Israel

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Saturday that he has signed a declaration using emergency powers to expedite the delivery of $4 billion in military aid to Israel, hailing the ties between the Jewish state and the US under President Donald Trump.

"Thedecision to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo, which wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel, is yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump," said Rubio in a statement.

He emphasized that "the Trump Administration has approved nearly $12 billion in major FMS sales to Israel. This important decision coincides with President Trump’s repeal of a Biden-era memorandum which had imposed baseless and politicized conditions on military assistance to Israel at a time when our close ally was fighting a war of survival on multiple fronts against Iran and terror proxies."

Trump recently confirmed ordering the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs destined for Israel. "Many things that were ordered and paid for by Israel, but not sent by Biden, are now on their way!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

In early May, the media outlet Axios had reported that Biden had decided to suspend a weapons shipment that was supposed to be sent to Israel. The White House later confirmed having interrupted the shipment of bombs due to American opposition to a planned Israeli attack on the city of Rafah, in the south of Gaza. The next day, Biden had warned that he would stop American arms deliveries to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of Rafah. In August, however, the United States sent Israel a shipment of MK-83 bombs, each weighing half a ton.