The Trump administration has approved a $2.8 billion sale of heavy munitions to Israel that would rank among the largest deliveries of American bombs to the country in years, according to two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter. The package moves forward even as public support for Israel among Americans continues to slide, and as the war triggered by the U.S. and Israel’s joint offensive against Iran grinds into its seventh month.
The Package
The proposed deal includes 40,000 one-ton bomb bodies, split evenly between 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, according to officials familiar with the plan. It would also supply Israel with 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, designed to detonate on a delay after smashing through soil, rock or concrete to reach buried or fortified targets. A 2,000-pound bomb of this class can be lethal at distances beyond 1,000 feet and can leave a crater as deep as 50 feet, making it one of the most destructive conventional munitions in the American arsenal. w
Most of the package would be paid for through Foreign Military Financing, a State Department program under which American taxpayer dollars are provided to Israel so it can, in turn, purchase the weapons from the United States. Reuters separately confirmed the $2.8 billion figure and the bomb quantities, describing the arrangement as one that funnels U.S. government funding back into American defense contracts on Israel’s behalf.
How The Sale Moves Through Washington
The State Department has informally notified the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee of the proposed sale, the first stage of a review process that precedes formal notification to Congress. The package has not been finalized, and its terms could still shift before it advances further. Production and delivery of munitions at this scale typically takes months or years, though the administration has methods available to expedite the timeline if it chooses.
Congressional leaders can formally object to the deal, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio retains emergency authority to bypass informal review and proceed regardless, an option he has exercised multiple times during the current administration. In that scenario, both chambers of Congress would need to pass a resolution of disapproval to block the sale, and any such resolution would require a two-thirds majority in each chamber to survive a near-certain presidential veto.
A Pattern Of Escalating Deliveries
This is not the first time Washington has authorized a bomb shipment of this magnitude to Israel, nor is it likely to be the largest for long given the trajectory of recent deals. In February 2025, the State Department approved a roughly $2.04 billion sale containing as many as 35,529 MK-84 or BLU-117 bomb bodies, combined with 4,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, invoking emergency authority to bypass the standard congressional review period. The administration followed that with a separate series of arms sales to Israel totaling $6.67 billion in January 2026.
The newly proposed package exceeds the February 2025 deal by roughly 4,500 bomb bodies while increasing the number of I-2000 penetrator warheads fivefold, from 4,000 to 20,000. That earlier sale itself followed a reversal of a Biden administration decision: in mid-2024, President Biden paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs over concerns about their use in crowded civilian areas in Gaza, and President Trump allowed the shipment to proceed within days of taking office in January 2025.
International Outcry Over Blast Radius
Human rights organizations and several foreign governments have condemned Israel’s use of these one-ton bombs in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon, arguing that their wide blast radius has caused significant civilian casualties in strikes aimed at single individuals or small groups of fighters. Analysts who have reviewed strike footage and blast fragments recovered on-site believe U.S.-made bombs of this type have been used against tunnel networks beneath Gaza, though the Israeli military has offered few public details about its munitions use.
Trevor Ball, a former explosive-ordnance-disposal technician with the U.S. Army, described the destructive capability of the MK-84 in blunt terms. “An MK-84 will bring down the whole building,” he said, explaining that Israeli forces have relied on the bombs specifically because of that leveling effect.
Israel has defended its munitions choices by arguing that Hamas fighters in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon deliberately embed themselves among civilian populations, including in underground bunkers and tunnel systems that require heavy ordnance to penetrate, forcing Israel into a position where civilian harm becomes difficult to avoid. But a number of former U.S. officials and independent military analysts have questioned whether Israel has too readily bypassed less destructive alternatives when striking targets in crowded areas.
Netanyahu, Trump, And The UN
The scale of the approval underscores President Trump’s continued backing of Israel despite a series of recent disputes with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the conduct of Israeli military operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. Netanyahu is expected to travel to New York in the coming days to address the United Nations General Assembly, a venue where his appearances in past years have drawn walkouts and sharp criticism from other world leaders over the war’s civilian toll.
The State Department, asked to comment on the proposed sale, said as a matter of policy it does not confirm or discuss arms deals that have not yet been formally notified to Congress. A senior administration official offered a similar response to other outlets inquiring about the package, saying only that all foreign arms sales move through the appropriate process.
Democrats’ Growing Revolt
The proposed deal is expected to reignite opposition among congressional Democrats, a growing number of whom have shifted position on unconditional military support for Israel since the war in Gaza began. In April 2026, the Senate voted on a pair of resolutions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, seeking to block earlier sales of bombs and armored bulldozers to Israel. Forty of 47 Senate Democrats backed the measure targeting the bulldozer sale, and 36 backed the resolution on bombs, both records for Democratic defection from the party’s traditional posture on Israel, though both measures ultimately failed.
Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who supported both resolutions after opposing some of Sanders’ earlier efforts, said his decision stemmed from what he called “the reckless decisions being made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump.” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who has generally described herself as a strong supporter of Israel, said she intended to “continue to assess U.S.-funded offensive weapons to Israel on a case-by-case basis” going forward.
MAGA Turns On Israel
Opposition to the sale has not been confined to the political left. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the Iran war within Trump’s own political coalition, posted a lengthy social media statement warning that “there is no precedent for what the Trump administration is doing.” Carlson argued the bombs would be used against Hezbollah in Lebanon and potentially in other regional conflicts, and suggested the shipment would serve only to prolong the war with Iran rather than resolve it, closing his post with a call for public pressure to stop the sale.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has increasingly aligned with Carlson on foreign policy in recent months, amplified his post with her own message to the administration’s base: “We did not vote for this.” The reaction reflects a broader erosion of support for the war among some of Trump’s traditional supporters, adding a second front of political pressure to the deal alongside Democratic opposition in Congress.
The Bigger Picture
The United States provides Israel a baseline of $3.8 billion in annual military assistance, including $3.3 billion in financing that Israel largely uses to purchase American-made weapons — financing that underwrites sales like this one. An additional $500 million is earmarked each year for joint missile-defense programs between the two countries. Those figures represent the floor of U.S. support, with individual arms packages like the current $2.8 billion proposal negotiated and approved separately and on top of that baseline.
Throughout his second term, Trump has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu over Israeli military operations outside its borders, disputes that have at times complicated U.S.-led efforts to secure a lasting peace in Gaza and resolve the broader conflict with Iran. Even so, Trump has expressed markedly less public concern than his predecessor about the civilian toll of Israel’s campaigns — a contrast with President Biden, who faced sustained criticism of his own for what many viewed as insufficient pressure on Israel over civilian casualties during the Gaza war.