US to Sell 40,000 One-ton Bombs to Israel
In a Munitions Package Worth $2.8 Billion

Shannon K. Kingston / ABC News

(September 20, 2026) — The Trump administration has greenlit a $2.8 billion arms sale to Israel that includes tens of thousands of controversial one-ton bombs, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The package contains 20,000 MK-84 and 20,000 BLU-117 bombs, which are both powerful, general-purpose heavy munitions, along with other explosives, the sources said. The bombs, which have a wide blast zone, are controversial because of a high risk to civilians when they are deployed in heavily populated areas.

While the State Department has informally notified key congressional committees about the pending sale, the administration has not yet initiated a formal review process and the package has not been finalized, the sources said.

The State Department does not confirm or comment on pending arms sales before formally notifying Congress.

“The United States reserves the right to protect its national and international interests. Our commitment to Israel is ironclad,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “Israel has the right to defend itself, and the United States supports Israel taking necessary action to defend its country, consistent with international law.”

The administration’s decision to push forward the proposed sale, which was first reported by The Washington Post, comes in spite of recent public disagreements between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over post-war plans for Gaza and military escalation in Lebanon.

U.S. sales of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel have come under scrutiny in the past. Amid criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and concerns about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, the Biden administration suspended one shipment of the munitions in 2024 — containing 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs.

In early 2025, the Trump administration lifted the pause on the shipment and sidestepped congressional review by invoking emergency measures to process another arms sale to Israel that included 35,500 MK 84 and BLU-117 bombs. The sale went through after bypassing congressional review.

The conflict in Gaza has eased significantly since a U.S.-backed ceasefire took hold in October 2025, but Israeli strikes in the area have continued in response to what the country’s authorities say are efforts by Hamas to reconstitute.

“There’s not a lot of fighting in Gaza. Hamas is now willing to give up their weapons,” President Donald Trump said earlier this week.

Although Hamas has agreed to the U.S.-created Board of Peace’s plan, which requires the group to disarm, there are lingering disagreements over the sequencing and both sides have accused each other of violating the terms of the deal.

Envoys of the Trump administration have attempted to advance the peace process in recent weeks, but some officials assess that any substantial progress is unlikely to happen before Israel’s legislative elections in late October.

ACTION ALERT:
Trump Found a Way to Make YOU Buy the Bombs
The People United / https://act.thepeopleunited.org/

(September 20, 2026) — The Trump administration is reportedly moving a $2.8 billion package of bombs to the Israeli military: 40,000 two-thousand-pound bombs – 20,000 MK-84s and 20,000 BLU-117s – plus 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads built to punch through hardened, underground structures. Reporting indicates it would be the largest transfer of 2,000-pound munitions to Israel under either the Biden or Trump administrations.

And most of it is expected to move through Foreign Military Financing. That’s the program where the U.S. government provides the grant money, and the weapons get bought with it.

An MK-84 can leave a crater 50 feet across and three stories deep, and throw lethal fragments hundreds of yards in every direction. That’s a recipe for mass civilian casualties.

And we know how they have been used. A peer-reviewed study in PLOS Global Public Health mapped 592 MK-84 craters across Gaza in the first 40 days after October 7, 2023. Thirty of Gaza’s 36 hospitals had at least one of those craters within damage-and-injury range. Nine had one inside the lethal radius. The closest landed 15 meters from a hospital… while tens of thousands of people were sheltering in and around those buildings.

This sale has not been formally sent to Congress yet. It is sitting in informal review, where Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on House Foreign Affairs, is withholding his sign-off over unresolved questions about how the weapons would be used.

But that hold is a courtesy. This administration has run straight through courtesies before, including by declaring an “emergency” to skip congressional review entirely.

Which is why the Senate is the real fight. Once a sale is formally notified, any single senator can force a floor vote on a joint resolution of disapproval.

In April, a record 40 senators voted to block a sale of armored bulldozers to the Israeli military… 40 of the 47 members of the Democratic caucus, up from 27 a year earlier and 18 the year before that.

And the public is already there: a New York Times/Siena poll in May found 57% of registered voters oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, including close to three-quarters of Democrats.

ACTION ALERT: Forty thousand bombs is not a defense package. It’s a pre-order. Tell your senators to block it.

In solidarity,
The People United