US spent a record $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since last Oct. 7

The United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project, released on the anniversary of Hamas’ attacks on Israel.

An additional $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up US military operations in the region since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, researchers say in findings first provided to The Associated Press. That includes the costs of a Navy-led campaign to quell strikes on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Houthis, who claim to be carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed terror group Hamas.

The financial costs were calculated by Linda J. Bilmes, a professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, who has assessed the full costs of US wars since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and fellow researchers William D. Hartung and Stephen Semler.

Much of the US weapons delivered in the year were munitions, from artillery shells to 2,000-pound bunker-busters and precision-guided bombs.

Expenditures range from $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems to cash for rifles and jet fuel, the study says.

Unlike the United States’ publicly documented military aid to Ukraine, it was impossible to get the full details of what the US has shipped Israel since last Oct. 7, so the $17.9 billion for the year is a partial figure, the researchers say.

They cited Biden administration “efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering.”