From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Netanyahu: Israeli soldiers lost their lives in Gaza because of Biden-era arms embargo
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Leveling an incendiary accusation at the Biden administration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charges that some Israeli soldiers lost their lives in the war against Hamas because of what he says was an “embargo” that caused Israel to run out of ammunition.
He does not specify how many soldiers lost their lives for this reason, or precisely when it happened.
The prime minister does not directly name the Biden administration, but says that the embargo ended as soon as US President Donald Trump took office.
Netanyahu has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of instituting an embargo on arms supplies to Israel, notably in June 2024. Biden has denied withholding arms from Israel, apart from a batch of 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs amid concerns about how they would be used in the IDF’s operations in Rafah at that time.
In remarks late in his press conference, not prompted by a question, Netanyahu says Israel paid “very heavy prices” in the war in terms of the loss of soldiers’ lives. While “part of that is what happens in war,” he says, part of it stemmed from the fact that “at a certain stage, we didn’t have enough ammunition.”
Soldiers at the time were fighting in areas where artillery and air force weaponry had been used, but terrorists had remained in booby-trapped houses, he says.
“Heroes fell” because they didn’t have the ammunition they needed, he charges. And “part of that absent ammunition was because of the embargo.”
Netanyahu says he has resolved that this will never be allowed to happen again, and that is why he is determined to ensure that Israel has its own strong and independent arms industry. To that end, he says, he is aiming to shift the Israel-US relationship “from aid to partnership,” when it comes to weapons, with Israeli development and joint production, and that such a partnership could extend to allies, including India and Germany as well.
He has prioritized establishing a robust domestic army industry “for maximal independence,” Netanyahu says, “so we don’t run out of weapons or ammunition, and in the hope that we won’t have to use them.”
The Times of Israel Community.