Israel defense minister’s meeting with Lloyd Austin comes at a delicate moment in push for US weaponry

By Natasha Bertrand and Alex Marquardt, CNN

When Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant meets with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, Gallant is expected to ask for more US weaponry and equipment to support Israel’s war in Gaza, US officials said — an extremely delicate request at a moment when US weapons sales to the country are under intense scrutiny by lawmakers and critics of President Joe Biden’s ongoing support for Israel.

Gallant’s meeting with Austin will mark his first visit to the Pentagon as Israeli defense minister and follows his talks Monday with national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, where the weapons sales were also expected to be discussed, officials said.

The meetings come as the US and Israeli relationship hit a new low point Monday, with a separate Israeli delegation pulling out of planned meetings with US officials to discuss Israel’s military plans for southern Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled the delegation after the US did not veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages from Gaza.

“We’re very disappointed that they will not be coming to Washington, DC, to allow us to have a fulsome conversation with them about viable alternatives to going in on the ground in Rafah,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.

Despite the heightened tensions, the growing weapons sales from the US remain top of mind for Israeli defense officials, who have been pushing their US counterparts for faster approval and progress on the weapons transfers, multiple officials and people familiar with the requests told CNN.

Before traveling to Washington, DC, on Sunday, Gallant made clear in a phone call with Austin last week that he would be bringing with him a wishlist of US weapons and equipment that Israel wants to buy and have delivered in an expedited manner, officials said, including more precision-guided munitions and F-35 and F-15 fighter jets.

Gallant will be told that the various cases of weapons sales are being worked on, a senior administration official told CNN. “There is scrutiny, but no policy decision to deny” the provision of additional weapons to Israel, the official told CNN.

More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October, the enclave’s health ministry said last week. In phone calls, Austin routinely presses Gallant on how Israel is using the US-provided weapons for its operations in the enclave, US officials familiar with the calls said, and often tells Gallant that Israel is losing international support by not doing more to protect and aid civilians there.

But the defense secretary’s position on providing weapons to Israel has not shifted much since the war began, officials said.

“The secretary still believes fundamentally in Israel’s inherent right to defend themselves and that we will continue to support them in that regard,” Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Monday. “That support is ironclad.”

Still, one concern within the administration has been that approving too many big weapons sales too quickly could allow Israel to accumulate equipment for an eventual major confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, another US official said — something the US has been urging Israel to avoid. Another official said the US understands that Israel has to replenish its stockpiles as the war drains its supplies in order to restore deterrence.

On Monday, Gallant said that Israel could move closer to a war in the north with Lebanon if the Israel Defense Forces do not achieve a decisive victory over Hamas in Gaza.

“We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza,” Gallant said. “The lack of a decisive victory in Gaza may bring us closer to a war in the north.”

The Biden administration has also been debating whether and how to condition certain forms of military assistance to Israel, particularly as Netanyahu weighs a major military incursion into Rafah where more than 1 million Palestinians have sought refuge since the war began.

US officials have publicly opposed such an offensive, particularly since Israel has still not presented the Biden administration with a plan for how it could carry out such an operation and keep those civilians safe.

“If there is one, that would be something we would want to hear,” said the senior administration official who added that consequences for ignoring US urgings are increasingly being considered.

“We don’t believe that a ground operation in Rafah is the right course of action,” Kirby said Monday. Austin also told Gallant last week that Israel needs “to consider alternatives to a major ground operation in Rafah,” according to a Pentagon readout of their call.

Even as the Biden administration has been pressuring Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave and refrain from going to war with Hezbollah, the US has not stopped the flow of weapons.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israel in October, the US has made more than 100 foreign military sales to Israel, according to a source familiar with a classified briefing US lawmakers received on this issue last month. Each sale can consist of multiple separate weapons shipments, the source explained.

Foreign military sales are either denied or approved by the State Department and typically have to be signed off on by Congress before they can move forward, but most of the US sales to Israel since October 7 — particularly the individual munitions sales — have fallen under the specific dollar amount that requires a notification to Congress, an official familiar with the matter told CNN. While sent in batches, however, the sales “end up being many thousands of bombs in aggregate,” the official said.

Only two such sales, for tank ammunition and 155-mm shell components, have been publicized since October and only because the State Department used their emergency authority to bypass congressional approval.

The sale of more fighter jets to Israel, however, will be large enough to require review and approval by Congress and will likely ignite intense debate, the official said.

Democratic lawmakers have called for the US to suspend military assistance to Israel unless it provides credible and reliable assurances that it is complying with international humanitarian law, a demand that the Biden administration codified into a national security memorandum last month. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday that the US had received those assurances from Israel, but that the US’ own assessments of Israel’s conduct is ongoing.

“Those ongoing assessments are not something that started because of the national security memorandum, and they’re not something that stopped because we got these assurances from Israel yesterday,” Miller said. “They will be ongoing.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Oren Liebermann contributed to this report.

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