The Trump administration’s plan to sell $2.8 billion in bombs to Israel has drawn criticism for mass targeting of civilians in the region.
Published September 16, 2026
The Trump administration is preparing to sell Israel 907 kg (2,000 lb) of bombs worth $2.8 billion, the largest single ammunition sale in recent years, the Washington Post and AFP reported.
The package, funded through foreign military loans (a mechanism by which Washington provides funds that Israel uses to purchase American weapons), includes 40,000 bombs. These include 20,000 MK-84 general purpose bombs, 20,000 BLU-117s, a thermally coated version of the MK-84 designed for safer naval storage, and I-2000 penetrator warheads built to attack hardened underground structures.
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Nicknamed the “Hammer” by U.S. military pilots during the first Gulf War, the MK-84 is one of the most destructive weapons in the Western arsenal, capable of projecting metal fragments hundreds of meters and punching through thick concrete, the paper said.
“The radius of destruction of the American Mark 84 is half a mile,” conservative commentator Tucker Carlson wrote of the X, citing anonymous federal officials. “It emits a heat wave with the same temperature as the surface of the sun…The bomb collapses an apartment building and leaves a 35-foot-deep crater.”
This agreement was informally notified to a parliamentary committee.
The Post reported that a senior administration official said only that “all arms sales to foreign countries go through the proper process,” but the State Department said it would not comment on the proposed sale until it was formally notified to Congress.
Israel has used 907kg bombs hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon, including in areas it had designated as safe for civilians, drawing continued criticism from human rights groups.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration halted one such shipment in 2024, citing concerns about civilian casualties, the only munitions the government withheld during the Gaza massacre, but Trump reversed that suspension a month after taking office.
The sale comes amid heightened tensions between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and growing bipartisan anxiety in Washington over unconditional military aid.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen accused President Trump of “sending a bomb paid for by American taxpayers to a government led by a wanted war criminal” and said he would work to block the sale.
Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “We did not vote for this. America does not stand for this. Our tax dollars and weapons have been used to kill tens of thousands of innocent people.”
Carlson called the nearly $3 billion package a “gift” to the Israeli government “committed to exterminating unarmed civilians in Gaza” and called on senators and U.S. lawmakers to block the deal.
Brian Finucane, senior U.S. program adviser at the International Crisis Group, said the sale, even if unintentional, would “send a vote of confidence to Israel” at a time when the administration is trying to calm the region. Analysts believe the timing was deliberate on the part of Israel, wary of the possibility that a future regime would be unconditionally unreliable and now seeking to secure broad support from the US military.
