Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Jerusalem press conference on Tuesday, January 27, that Israeli soldiers died in Gaza because the United States imposed an “arms embargo” during Joe Biden’s presidency that left the Israel Defense Forces short of ammunition. Netanyahu said the alleged embargo ended when President Donald Trump took office, and he provided no number of deaths and no dates for when the shortage occurred. Former Biden officials Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk rejected the claim, with McGurk calling it “categorically false.”
Netanyahu raised the accusation at the very end of a lengthy press conference, without a question prompting it. He said Israel had paid “very heavy prices” in soldiers’ lives and argued that, “at a certain stage,” Israeli forces “didn’t have enough ammunition.”
He said troops were fighting in areas already hit by artillery and airpower but still faced militants in booby-trapped houses. “Heroes fell,” he said, because they lacked needed ammunition, and he blamed “part” of the missing supply on the alleged embargo.
Netanyahu has used the same grievance before, including a public dispute in June 2024. The White House publicly said in May 2024 that it had paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs over concerns about their use in densely populated areas, while continuing other military assistance.
The word “embargo” implies a broad cutoff. A pause on a single bomb shipment does not meet that description. Documented U.S. weapons and funding flows to Israel continued during Biden’s presidency, alongside a narrow pause on a single type of munition.
A 10-year U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding covering fiscal years 2019 through 2028 commits the United States, subject to congressional appropriations, to $38 billion in military assistance: $33 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants and $5 billion for missile defense programs, structured as $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for missile defense each year.
Congress also approved emergency funding after October 7, 2023. The FY2024 national security supplemental enacted as Public Law 118-50 in April 2024 included an Israel-focused division, and official summaries described $26.38 billion to support Israel, reimburse U.S. operations, and fund procurements such as missile defense, munitions production, and replenishment of defense articles provided to Israel.
U.S. officials said in June 2024 that one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs had been paused and that other arms deliveries continued. The Trump administration released that hold in January 2025, including 1,800 MK-84 bombs.
The Biden administration invoked emergency authority in late 2023 to bypass congressional review for more than $250 million in weapons sales to Israel, including tank shells and 155mm artillery shells.
Israel announced in September 2024 that it had secured an $8.7 billion U.S. aid package, including $3.5 billion for wartime procurement and $5.2 billion for air defense systems such as Iron Dome and David’s Sling.
An academic study by Brown University’s Costs of War project estimated at least $21.7 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel over the first two years of the Gaza war and said $17.9 billion was provided in the first year, when Biden was in office.
Netanyahu paired the embargo allegation with a call for greater Israeli arms self-reliance and for shifting the U.S.-Israel relationship “from aid to partnership,” including joint development and production.
Netanyahu’s accusation also followed criticism over comments he made to The Economist, in which he said Israel lost many soldiers because he refused to “carpet bomb” cities before IDF ground forces entered.
Hochstein said Netanyahu was “not telling the truth” and “ungrateful,” and he said Biden provided more than $20 billion in military support.
