The Trump administration is moving forward with a $2.8 billion sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel on Tuesday, marking one of the largest U.S. weapons transactions with Jerusalem that was previously halted by the Biden administration. The package includes 40,000 highly destructive bombs comprised of 20,000 MK-84s and 20,000 BLU-117s…
Page F2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 15 September 2026
American taxpayers fund Israel's 'homegrown' missile shield, then pay again for a record $2.8 billion in bombs.
As it ran on the front
In January 2024, Israeli soldiers opened fire on a car fleeing Gaza City carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and six relatives; all were killed, along with the Palestinian Red Crescent medics sent to rescue them. Israel's military admitted to opening that fire on August 21, and said it would separately investigate the killing of 15 paramedics whose crushed emergency vehicles were pulled from a mass grave. No dollar figure attaches to an admission. The bomb order does.
Four days later, on August 25, Israel bombed a Gaza water desalination plant, a mosque, and a cluster of tents, killing seven people, including children. The record does not tie that strike's funding to this week's purchase, and neither will this column. What the record does show is what got billed to the taxpayer three weeks after.…
…(cont) On September 10, a documentary called "NAZA" premiered in Venice, built from interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence insiders. Several of them served in a secret unit and described turning the killing of civilians into what the filmmakers call a routine, bureaucratized affair. Bureaucratized is the operative word, hon — it means there is a form for it.
There is also a form for the bombs. On Tuesday, September 15, the Washington Post reported a proposed $2.8 billion package: 20,000 MK-84 bombs, 20,000 BLU-117 bombs, and, in that same account, 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, purchased with U.S. taxpayer money through the Foreign Military Financing program. On Wednesday, September 16, the Associated Press confirmed Trump had approved the sale — one day later, same $2.8 billion, now counted as 40,000 bombs total, MK-84s and BLU-117s only. The I-2000s do not reappear in that count. Two wire services filed on the same shipment one day apart, priced it the same, and did not file the same inventory.
This is the sale the Biden administration halted over its use in Gaza. The approval reverses that, with no reconciliation on the record of what changed.
Run the other ledger. Drop Site News reports the Iron Beam laser and the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, marketed for years as Israeli engineering, were largely designed and financed by the United States. So the country paying for 40,000 bombs going out the door is the same country that already paid to build the shield credited, on the label, to somebody else.
Total the account. One bureaucratized war, one missile shield built here and branded there, one bomb order that survived a halt with the reason for the halt left off the invoice. Reconcile it against any household ledger you keep. It doesn't balance. It isn't supposed to.
“They tell you Israel invented the Iron Beam and the Arrow, and it turns out we built and paid for both — that's not tech transfer, that's a receipt with somebody else's name stapled to the top. Then Washington turns around and greenlights $2.8 billion in bombs it once said no to, forty thousand of them, and none of that money comes back as a loan you get to see repaid. You're not funding an ally's ingenuity, pal, you're funding the invoice and the cover story both, and the kid's school levy is still on the ballot in November.”
“Look, the systems are jointly developed — that's how alliances work, co-development, technology sharing, it's not like we handed them a receipt with our name scratched off. And this bomb sale? It's a previously reviewed package the last administration froze for political reasons, we're just restoring the relationship — restoring, not escalating, there's a difference. Did I say $2.8 billion like that's supposed to sound normal? That's — actually forget I said the number.”
The receipts
The Trump administration is preparing to send Israel tens of thousands of 2,000-pound bombs , The Washington Post reported Tuesday—a move that would rank as the largest single sale of the highly destructive munitions, which the Israel Defense Forces have used in some of the deadliest US-backed airstrikes on Gaza and Lebanon. According to…
The Iron Beam laser and Arrow anti-ballistic missile systems are touted as examples of Israeli military ingenuity. But they were largely developed and financed by the U.S.
The UN counts an average of 12 children killed or maimed every day in Lebanon since March 2026 - 247 killed by mid-June UN News, 17 June 2026
Trump Approves $2.8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, Including 40,000 One-Ton BombsThe package would be among the largest deliveries of U.S. munitions to Israel.
· Headlines for August 25, 2026 from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
· Israeli Documentary ‘NAZA’ Exposes 'System of Killing' in Gaza From Eyes of Secret Intelligence Unit from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· As Pressure Grows, Israel Finally Opens Probe into 2024 Killing of 5-Year-Old Hind Rajab in Gaza from the morgue, 21 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.