Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran are sustained by huge US

Israel's one-on-one wars across the Middle East over the past two years would not have been possible without huge US financial support, according to two new reports from the Cost of War Project at Brown University in the US.

The two reports say that the US has provided Israel with more than $21 billion in aid since the war began in October 2023. Without this support, Israel would not have been able to continue its massacres in Gaza, its war with Iran or its repeated bombing of Yemen.

Omar H. Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, a Middle East research institute, told Al Jazeera, "US support is essential for Israel in its war in Gaza and other wars in the region."

So far, 67,160 people have been killed and 169,679 injured in the Israeli attack on Gaza. Thousands of people are still buried under the rubble. Israeli strikes in Yemen have killed scores, and strikes in Iran in June killed more than 1,000.

‘Couldn’t have done it without American money’

“Israel could not have carried out such widespread destruction without US money, weapons and political support,” wrote researcher William D. Hartung in a report titled ‘US Military Aid and Arms Transfers to Israel (October 2023–September 2025)’.

The report was published by Brown University’s Costs of War Project and the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which calls for a return to diplomatic restraint and a shift away from “endless wars” in US foreign policy.

In another report, Linda Bilmes, a budget expert at the Harvard Kennedy School, said that the total cost of US military assistance and operations from October 2023 to September 2025 was between $31 billion and $33 billion.

A tradition of bipartisan support

Israel has long been the largest recipient of US foreign aid. The country receives about $3.3 billion in aid annually, and has received more than $150 billion in total by 2022.

Hartung’s report said that both administrations, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have signed huge arms sales deals to Israel, which will be paid for in the coming years.

“This bipartisan support has allowed Israel to repeatedly violate international law—even Western democracies do not question it,” said Omar Rahman.

The attitude of the American public is changing

However, public support for Israel in the United States has been rapidly declining in recent times. A Washington Post poll found that 40 percent of American Jews believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and more than 60 percent say the country has committed war crimes.

“No Democratic candidate in the 2028 election will get away with denying the Biden administration’s role in this genocide,” said Matt Dass, executive vice president of the Washington-based Center for International Policy.

“We always find money for Israel”

Analysts say that despite the weak social safety net in the United States, billions of dollars in aid to Israel are always available.

“This is a victory not only for Israel, but also for the American military-industrial complex, because a large part of this aid goes to selling weapons to American companies,” Dass said.