US skips congressional review to approve munitions sale to Israel

• Sale fast-tracks 12,000 thousand-pound bomb bodies in $152m deal
• Secretary of State Rubio cites ‘emergency’ to justify sidestepping lawmakers
• Democrat slams White House, calls it an ‘emergency of its own creation’

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Friday it has approved a sale worth $151.8 million to Israel for munitions and munitions support, without submitting it for congressional review.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that an emergency existed requiring an immediate sale to Israel, the State Department said. The announcement came a week after the U.S. and Israel began attacks on Iran.

Israel had requested 12,000 BLU-110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bomb bodies, the State Department said in a statement. The principal contractor will be Repkon USA, located in Texas, it said.

The State Department said Rubio determined that the sale is “in the national security interests of the United States”.

Democratic US Rep Gregory Meeks said Rubio’s decision to use emergency authority to bypass congressional review showed a lack of preparation for the war on Iran.

“The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted it was fully prepared for this war,” Meeks said in a statement. “Rushing to invoke emergency authority to circumvent Congress tells a different story. This is an emergency of the Trump administration’s own creation.”

The US and Israel launched an air assault on Iran on Feb. 28, and Iran responded with its own attacks in Israel and on regional countries with US bases.

In the last week, US and Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and thousands more have been wounded, according to Iran’s UN ambassador. Many top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have also been killed.

The US military has said six service members were killed in a strike on a Kuwait facility, while Israel has said at least 10 civilians have been killed across Israel so far.

Washington has maintained strong support for Israel under President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden during more than two years of Israeli wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

The Trump administration has also previously made military sales to Israel by skipping congressional reviews, as did the Biden administration when it was in power.

Washington’s military support has faced scrutiny from rights experts, particularly during Israel’s assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands, caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and led to assessments of genocide from scholars and a UN inquiry.

Israel calls its actions self-defence after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in an October 2023 attack.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2026