Retaliatory rockets launched towards Israeli-occupied territories from Gaza Strip amid a volley of missiles fired from the Israeli regime’s increasingly ineffective Iron Dome system on May 14, 2021 in Gaza City, Palestine. (File photo)
Tel Aviv, January 17 (RHC)-- The Israeli regime has reportedly prepared a secret wish list of weapons systems that it wants the US to add to the so-called American emergency stockpile in occupied Palestine for purported military action against Iran’s civilian nuclear sites and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance group.
The wish list is “highly classified” and includes aerial munitions that the occupying regime “predicts would be needed” if it dares to militarily engage Iran or fend off against Hezbollah’s retaliatory rocket strikes, U.S.-based Breaking Defense military news outlet reported Friday, citing Israeli military sources in Tel Aviv.
The U.S. War Reserves Stock Allies stockpile, established in the 1980s, allows the US military to “stockpile arms and equipment at Israeli bases for American use in wartime” and has included missiles, armored vehicles and artillery ammunition, according to a report by the official US Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Later the U.S. amended the rules for the stockpile, the report further noted, explaining that the Israeli regime could have direct access “in emergency situations,” and weapons could be transferred through significantly streamlined Foreign Military Sales channels.
“Officially, all this equipment belongs to the US military. If, however, there is a conflict, the IDF (Israeli military forces) can ask permission to use some of the equipment,” said an Israeli military officer quoted in a 2020 CRS document cited in the report.
That has happened at least twice, according to the Washington-based CRS: once during the Israeli regime’s massive military aggression against Lebanon in 2006 and again during the regime’s brutal military onslaught in 2014 against the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, in the besieged Gaza Strip. Israeli forces suffered huge losses in both instances, prompting it to work out ceasefire deals through intermediaries.
The U.S. also simulated a stockpile weapons transfer for a bilateral war games with Israeli regime forces back in 2019, according to the report.
The report further cited a senior Israeli military source as emphasizing the advantages of increasing the stockpiles of US weaponry in occupied Palestine, saying: “First, since the weapons are owned by the U.S., they don’t affect Israel’s military budget until they’re needed. Second, while Israel does foot the bill for the systems’ maintenance, they’re stored in U.S.-controlled areas” of Israeli military bases.
