Damming Reports Shed Lights on the Extent of US Financial and Military Aid to Israel

Since the onset of the Gaza war two years ago, the United States, under both the Biden and Trump administrations, has allocated billions in military aid to Israel, as revealed by a recent academic study released on Tuesday. The report published on October 07, 2025, by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that the U.S. has supplied $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Additionally, the study, which was released jointly by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, indicates that arms sales to Israel notified to Congress since the Trump administration took office on January 20, 2025, have totaled at least $10.1 billion.

DOCUMENT:   U.S. Military Aid and Arms Transfers to Israel, October 2023 – September 2025. Study by William D. Hartung, Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute (Source: Watson School of International and Public Affairs)
U.S.-Military-Aid-to-Israel_Hartung_Costs-of-War-Quincy_Oct-7-2025

A parallel report from Linda J. Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public policy and public finance at the Harvard Kennedy School, and published by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, examining U.S. expenditures on wider Middle East operations, including strikes against Yemen’s resistance group Ansar Allah (Houthis) and Iranian nuclear sites, estimates these expenses to be between $9.65 billion and $12 billion since October 7, 2023. This figure encompasses costs ranging from $2 billion to $2.25 billion for the assaults in Iran and related expenses incurred in June. Considering the magnitude of both current and anticipated expenditures, it is evident that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would not have been able to inflict the level of destruction they have in Gaza or heighten their military operations across the region without the financial backing, armaments, and political endorsement from the U.S.

DOCUMENT: Report on the “Costs of United States Military Activities in the Wider Middle East Since October 7, 2023”, by Linda J. Bilmes – October 7, 2025 (Source: Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft)
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

The information presented in both reports shows that in 2025, the US government intensified its military operations and commitments in the region. Alongside deploying two carrier strike groups to the Red Sea to safeguard maritime shipping from Houthis assaults and sustaining a considerable military presence throughout the year, the U.S. military executed two major operations: Operation Rough Rider (ORR), a bombing initiative targeting the Houthis in Yemen, and Operation Midnight Hammer (OMH), a strike aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to Linda J. Bilmes’ report, the total expenses for these operations are estimated to be between $4.8 and $7.2 billion. In Addition, the Costs of War Project highlighted that there are billions of dollars in arms sales agreements scheduled for payment in the upcoming years, which are not accounted for in the total figure.

Without financial resources, weaponry, and political backing from the U.S., the Israeli military would not have been able to escalate its military actions to a regional scale by targeting Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iran. In the absence of U.S. support, a growing portion of Israel’s military equipment would be out of service for repairs without the assistance of U.S. government or contractor mechanics and the availability of spare parts. It is worth noting that Israel and the US  do not have a mutual defense agreement, unlike the United States’ arrangements with allies like Japan and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Nevertheless, Israel is still included in a select group of “major non-NATO allies” and enjoys special access to the most cutting-edge U.S. military technologies and platforms, despite a recent UN report confirming that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.  At this point, many have suggested if not determined that the US has moved away from any obligation to international humanitarian law.

Since October 7, 2023, over 5.27 million individuals have been uprooted or forced to leave their residences in Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and the West Bank, which includes approximately 1.85 million minors under the age of 18. Between 2020 and 2024, private contractors were awarded $2.4 trillion in contracts by the US Department of Defense, representing about 54 percent of the Pentagon’s discretionary budget of $4.4 trillion, as reported by the Costs of War Project.

So far, the U.S. government has yet to take steps to halt the killings by ceasing military aid, halting weapons sales and deliveries to Israel, or providing assistance with maintenance and spare parts to the Israeli Occupying Force….

William Hartung reports for Responsible Statecraft…

$21.7 billion in US military aid has fueled Israel’s war on Gaza

A new report shows how American support has been essential to what many experts are now calling a genocide

A report released today by the Quincy Institute and the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that the U.S. has supplied $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. The Israeli response, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, has been described as a genocide by a series of independent experts [and the United Nations].

But whether one calls Israel’s actions a genocide, or a series of egregious violations of the laws of war, or merely surveys the human toll, one thing has remained consistent: U.S. military and financial support for the Israeli war effort. The $21.7 billion in U.S.military aid supplied to Israel in the past few years is nearly three times the amount that nation would have received during an average year, based on a 10-year $38 billion commitment negotiated by the Obama administration.

Israel could not have wreaked the level of destruction it has inflicted on Gaza without U.S. weapons and financing, and its ability to widen the war to the broader region would be severely undermined. While some of the weapons slated to be paid for with U.S. aid may not arrive for months or years, over $4 billion worth of weapons transferred from U.S. stocks arrived in short order.

Israel would also have been hard pressed to conduct the war at the pace it did without U.S. assistance with maintenance and spare parts. That’s because Israel’s entire inventory of combat aircraft is composed of U.S.-supplied F-15s, F-16s, and F-35s, as are most of its attack helicopters.

In short, the United States could substantially undermine Israel’s ability to wage war if it cut off weapons, financing and spare parts. But neither the Biden nor the Trump administrations have chosen to do so.

And, as another new Costs of War paper by Harvard University economist Linda Bilmes demonstrates, military aid is far from the only economic cost of U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza. U.S. military operations in the region — including doing battle with Houthi forces in Yemen and bombing Iran — have cost somewhere between $9.6 billion and $12.7 billion since the start of the Gaza war.

All of this U.S. support has enabled Israel to engage in mass slaughter, with devastating human consequences. Another new Costs of War paper, by Neta Crawford at the University of Oxford and the project’s co-founder, estimates that over 236,000 Gaza residents have been killed or injured during the war, an astounding 10 percent of the territory’s population. And in the fourth paper in the newly published Costs of War series, anthropologist David Vine found that since October 7, 2023, over 5 million people had been displaced by the war in Gaza and the fighting in the wider region.

The humanitarian costs of the Gaza war are unconscionable, but unfortunately, they are not the end of the story. Continuing to support Israel’s war efforts in Gaza and beyond could draw the United States into a direct, prolonged conflict in the region, as almost happened when the Trump administration ordered air strikes on Iran in June of this year. Meanwhile, America’s unwavering support for Israel’s brutal war will make it considerably harder for U.S. diplomats to press other nations on human rights issues or speak credibly about a “rules-based international order.”

There are no upsides to supporting Israel’s war on Gaza or its escalation of the conflict to the broader region. When will a U.S. president have the courage to abandon the policy of “Israel right or wrong” and use America’s leverage to stop the killing?

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Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/10/09/damming-reports-shed-lights-on-the-extent-of-us-financial-and-military-aid-to-israel/