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WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has told Congress it plans to sell nearly $6 billion in weapons to Israel, a fresh surge of support for the US ally as it faces increasing isolation over its war in Gaza.
It includes one $3.8 billion sale for 30 AH-64 Apache helicopters, nearly doubling Israel’s current stocks, and a second $1.9 billion sale for 3,200 infantry assault vehicles for Israeli army, according to a US official and another person familiar with the proposal who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been made public.
The packages would not be delivered for two to three years or longer.
The huge sales come as US plans to broker an end to the nearly two-year war between Israel and Hamas have stalled and after Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, drew widespread condemnation among US allies in the Middle East.
The US has kept up its support despite growing international pressure on Israel and attempts from a growing number of US Senate Democrats to block the sale of offensive weapons to Israel.
The State Department declined to comment on the sales, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Israel has launched a new offensive, pressing forward with plans to take over Gaza City, as a professional organization of scholars studying genocide has said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The U.K, which last year said it was suspending exports of some weapons to Israel out of concerns they could be used to violate international humanitarian laws, recently barred Israeli government officials from attending the country’s biggest arms fair.
Turkiye also said it was closing its airspace to Israeli government planes and any cargo of arms for the Israeli military, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in a speech condemned Israeli attacks on Gaza as disproportionate.
Trump said Friday that he plans to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Washington next week, with plans to discuss the purchases of Boeing aircraft and a deal for F-16 fighter jets.
The Biden administration paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns about civilian casualties, but Trump lifted that hold when he took office in January.
The Trump administration has already approved about $12 billion in major military assistance to Israel this year. Most recently, the US in June approved a half-billion-dollar arms sale to Israel to resupply its military with bomb guidance kits for precision.

PARIS: A moment of truth: That’s how French President Emmanuel Macron sees the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and other Western nations, with the hope to make it a landmark step in his push for peace in the Middle East as the devastating war in Gaza continues.
Macron is to formally declare France’s recognition of a Palestinian state on Monday at a UN conference in New York, as the UN General Assembly starts.
“We have to recognize the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to have a state,” Macron said in an interview broadcast on Israeli television Channel 12. 
“If you don’t give a political perspective, in fact, you just put them in the hands of those who are just proposing a security approach, an aggressive approach.”
Macron argues the move is the only way to bring peace and stability to the region as it puts back on the table a two-state solution, in which a Palestinian state would be created alongside Israel in most or all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
More than 145 countries already recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe. The UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Malta, Belgium, and Luxembourg, among others, are expected to follow Macron’s lead in recognizing Palestinian statehood in the coming days.
The move aims to prompt “tangible, irreversible progress within a time frame that allows for a return to the two-state solution,” according to a top French diplomat. 
Macron announced his decision at the end of July, arguing there’s no time to wait. 
“The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” he wrote on social platform X.
On Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noe Barrot tied Macron’s diplomatic efforts to the arrest of a key Palestinian suspect in a 1982 terror attack in Paris, adding that the recognition of a Palestinian state “will allow us to seek extradition.”
President Macron welcomed the arrest in the occupied West Bank, calling it the result of “excellent cooperation” with the Palestinian Authority.
The suspect, Hicham Harb, 70, is accused of overseeing the militants who stormed the Jo Goldenberg restaurant on Rue des Rosiers on Aug. 9, 1982.