DAY 86: ‘Israel needs three things to win – ammunition, ammunition and ammunition,’ senior official tells ALL ISRAEL NEWS

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – As 2023 comes to an end, U.S. President Joe Biden and his team are putting increasing pressure on Israel to wrap up quickly its “high intensity” combat operations in the Gaza Strip.

But Israeli leaders are pushing back.

Now on Day 86 of its war with Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north, Israeli leaders say they need dramatically more practical military assistance from the United States to win quickly and decisively.

“Now is not the time to end or slow down our ground operations in Gaza,” a senior Israeli official told ALL ISRAEL NEWS.

“We are making tremendous progress against the enemy,” the official added. “Day by day we are defeating Hamas and we have no intention of stopping until the job finished.”

“As we go into 2024, Israel needs three things to win – ammunition, ammunition and ammunition.”

“We need ammunition of all kinds, but the more precision-guided missiles we have, the faster we can win and the fewer civilian casualties we will incur.”

It is a message Jerusalem has been repeating with growing urgency to the White House, Pentagon, U.S. State Department, and Members of Congress over the past few weeks.

Why?

Because the IDF is rapidly burning through its stockpiles of ammunition in Gaza.

Because the IDF’s fight with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is intensifying, and in early 2024 could erupt into a far larger war as Israel seeks to push Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River, as required by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 back in 2006 but never enforced.

And because the $14.5 billion military aid package to Israel that Biden proposed, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives months ago, has stalled in the Senate.

In an exclusive interview with ALL ISRAEL NEWS in mid-December, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson blasted Biden and Senate Democrats for refusing quick passage of such aid for Israel.

“Within an hour of my being handed the gavel and taking the oath, we passed a resolution expressing the House’s support of Israel, our great ally and dear friend,” Johnson said in the article we published on Dec. 17. “And within a couple of days, we passed that aid package.”

The aid package passed on a bipartisan basis – 226 members voting in favor and 196 voting against – with 12 Democrats joining Republicans to stand firmly with Israel.

Nevertheless, Johnson told our Contributing Editor Tom Tradup that the aid package has remained on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s desk “collecting dust” for more than two months.

Biden and Schumer are insisting on a vastly larger aid package of some $106 billion that would lump together aid for Ukraine, as it fights Russia, and increased funds for security on the U.S. border with Mexico, among other matters.

Republicans are resisting such an omnibus bill and are demanding votes on each individual item, starting with aid for Israel.

That said, there is some evidence that the Biden team is listening to Israel’s urgent pleas for more ammunition.

On Friday, as ALL ISRAEL NEWS reported, Secretary of State Antony Blinken fast-tracked the immediate export of 155-mm artillery shells and other equipment to Israel worth $147.5 million.

In early December, Blinken greenlighted the fast-track export of 14,000 tank shells to the Israeli military, worth some $106 million.

So far, the U.S. says that it has provided Israel 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells since the war with Hamas began.