[contentcards url=”https://www.jns.org/house-passes-annual-defense-bill-with-hundreds-of-millions-for-israel/” target=”_blank”]
By Andrew Bernard
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the $895 billion annual defense bill on Wednesday with hundreds of millions of dollars for Israel.
Formally titled the “Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025,” the legislation includes $500 million for U.S.-Israel missile-defense cooperation, $47.5 million for U.S.-Israel cooperation on emerging technologies and $80 million for the U.S.-Israeli anti-tunneling initiative.
It also includes a provision that would bar the U.S. Department of Defense from citing casualty statistics from the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.
“In making assessments of casualties and fatalities during hostilities, the Department of Defense may not cite as authoritative in public communications, fatality figures that are derived by United States-designated terrorist organizations, governmental entities controlled by United States-designated terrorist organizations, or any sources that rely on figures provided by United States-designated terrorist organizations,” the act says.
The U.S. State Department designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
The Pentagon faced scrutiny regarding the use of Hamas’s statistics after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cited them during congressional testimony in February. They have been repeated by other members of the Biden administration, including U.S. President Joe Biden…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (jns.org)
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