The Trump administration is preparing to sell Israel a $2.8 billion package of 2,000-pound bombs, the largest single sale of the munition in recent years, according to reports by the Washington Post and the AFP news agency.
The deal includes 40,000 bombs: 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, a thermally coated variant of the MK-84 designed for safer naval storage, along with I-2000 Penetrator warheads built to strike hardened, underground structures. The package is funded through Foreign Military Financing, a mechanism in which Washington provides the money Israel then uses to buy US weapons. Congress has been informally notified about the pending deal, which is not yet final, according to two US officials and a person familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The sale reverses a pause imposed by the Biden administration. In 2024, former President Joe Biden’s administration paused a single shipment of the bombs over civilian casualty concerns, the only munition it withheld during the war in Gaza. Trump reversed that pause in his first month back in office in 2025. The proposed sale is the latest in a series of administration steps to expand Israeli military capacity. Last year, the Trump administration bypassed the normal congressional review process and approved a nearly $3 billion sale to Israel that included more than 35,500 of the bombs, then approved a new series of arms sales totaling $6.67 billion in January.
Destructive capacity and civilian harm
The MK-84, nicknamed the “hammer” by US pilots in the first Gulf War, is among the most destructive munitions in Western arsenals. According to the Washington Post, it sends metal fragments outward for hundreds of metres and can tear through thick concrete. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, citing an unnamed federal official, wrote on X that an American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile and releases a thermal wave he described as the temperature of the surface of the sun. He said the bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep.
Israel has used 907-kilogram bombs hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon, including in areas it had designated safe for civilians. The New York Times reported in late 2023 that Israel had routinely dropped MK-84 bombs in areas of Gaza it had designated as safe. Trevor Ball, a former explosive-ordnance-disposal technician for the US Army who studies open-source images of civilian harm caused by US weapons, told the Post that the Israeli military uses MK-84 bombs to destroy entire buildings in pursuit of suspected militants. “If Hezbollah or whoever is in a building, an MK-84 will bring down the whole building,” Ball said.
Experts analyzing strike footage and blast fragments found on-site believe US-made bombs have been used in Gaza, targeting a tunnel network reportedly used by Hamas but also killing people in densely populated areas. The war on Gaza has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and has decimated the territory. Gaza’s health ministry said Israel has killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed in violation of the ceasefire. The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
Political backlash and strategic timing
The sale lands amid growing strain between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and rising bipartisan unease in Washington over unconditional military support. US Senator Chris Van Hollen said he would work to block the sale, accusing Trump of “sending bombs paid for by American taxpayers to a government led by a wanted war criminal.” Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote that Americans did not vote for the deal and that US tax dollars and weapons have been used to kill tens of thousands of innocent people. Carlson called the roughly $3 billion package “a gift” to the Israeli government, which he said is “working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza,” and urged senators and lawmakers to block the deal.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, said the sale “sends a vote of confidence to Israel,” even if unintentionally, at a moment when the administration says it wants to calm the region. Analysts see the timing as deliberate on Israel’s part, seeking to lock in expansive US military backing now, wary that a future administration may prove less reliably unconditional. A senior administration official told the Post only that “all foreign arms sales are moving through the appropriate process.” The State Department said it does not comment on proposed sales before formal notification to Congress.
The US had brokered a fragile ceasefire, but it has been violated several times. The proposed sale comes as Israel has faced increasing international isolation over its war on Gaza. The deal has not yet been formally notified to Congress, and it remains unclear whether opponents will mount a sufficient legislative challenge to stop it.