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SvennoJ on 10 July 2024
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More on the US resuming 500-pound bomb shipments to Israel

At the beginning of May, US officials said the US had paused a shipment of heavy bombs, including 1,800 of 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs and 1,700 of 500-pound (227kg) bombs to Israel over concerns Israel would use the bombs on the then-heavily overcrowded Rafah.

Now, according to an unnamed US official quoted by Reuters, the US says the 500-pound bombs were only delayed because they were caught up in the same shipment as the 2,000-pound bombs.

“Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000 pound bombs,” the unnamed official told Reuters. “Because our concern was not about the 500 pounds bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process,” the US official added.

Is there a difference?

On explosion, a 500-pound bomb can severely harm or kill everything or anyone within a 20-metre (65 feet) radius, according to the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), which conducts defence policy research and analysis.

A 2,000-pound bomb has a destruction radius of 35 metres (115 feet).


The small diameter bombs already kill dozens of people a day. At least it won't be difficult to prove complicity if the ICJ ever gets the balls to actually convict Israel of genocide. While the US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute (ICC), the US has ratified the genocide convention (by Reagan).

However "The United States withdrew from the court’s compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 after the court ruled it owed Nicaragua war reparations."
https://www.cfr.org/video/united-states-and-icj
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/06/28/us-owes-nicaragua-reparations-1986-icj/

And of course with Veto power in the UNSC, the US can maintain impunity. (Just like UK, France, Russia, China)


Spanish PM Sanchez calls out West’s ‘double standards’ on Gaza at NATO summit

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the West was guilty of “double standards” regarding the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the AFP news agency reports.

“If we are telling our people that we are supporting Ukraine because we are defending the international law, this is the same to what we have to do towards Gaza,” Sanchez said at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

The West required a “consistent political position” in which “we don’t have double standards”, he said.

Sanchez also said the world needed to press to “stop this terrible humanitarian crisis” affecting the Palestinians and called for an international peace conference to push for a Palestinian state. “We need to create the conditions for an immediate and urgent ceasefire,” he said, adding that there is a serious risk of escalation in Lebanon

Sanchez has already infuriated Israel’s right-wing government by recently recognising Palestinian statehood and has criticised Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza.


Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers remarks at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, on Wednesday

UN documents spiralling Israeli military, settler violence in the occupied West Bank

Fifteen Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank between July 2 and 9, the UN reports, while the total number of Palestinians killed in the occupied territory since October has now reached 553.

Twelve of the 15 victims were killed in two Israeli military operations in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Tulkarem and their nearby refugee camps, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest West Bank situation report. Another of the victims was a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot and killed on Tuesday in the Ramallah area.

An Israeli settler attack during the same period forced the displacement of a Palestinian family while 13 other families were affected by the violence, OCHA reports.

Since October, more than 1,000 attacks by settlers have been reported against Palestinians as well as the displacement of 1,390 people, of which 660 were children, the UN report adds.