How US defence aid shaped Israel’s military developments since Oct 7, 2023

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that the US House of Representatives has narrowly approved a version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027 that includes $750m for Israel-related military programmes, a $65m increase from the previous year. The bill is not final: it still requires Senate approval and a presidential signature, and Senate Democrats recently blocked their chamber’s version.

According to the report, $500m in the House bill would fund missile defence programmes such as Iron Dome, while $100m would go to counter-drone systems, $100m to subterranean operations technology, and $50m to emerging defence tools including artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. Supporters including AIPAC welcomed the funding, while critics such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations objected, citing the risk of further enabling Israel’s war in Gaza.

Al Jazeera places the current debate in the context of decades of US-Israel defence cooperation. A 2016 memorandum of understanding covered fiscal years 2019 to 2028 and committed $33bn in Foreign Military Financing plus $5bn for missile defence. The article also cites Brown University’s Costs of War Project as estimating that Washington provided about $21bn in military assistance to Israel between October 2023 and September 2025.

The report also highlights private-sector links to Israel’s military supply chain, naming companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX and Palantir. It says US-supplied aircraft and helicopters form a major part of Israel’s combat fleet, while Palantir has provided AI and data-analysis technology to Israel’s Ministry of Defence since the October 7, 2023 attacks and the ensuing Gaza war.