WASHINGTON: 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 Monday 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, attacks, researchers said 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 are carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas.
The report — completed before Israel opened a second front, this one against Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, in late September — is one of the first tallies of estimated US costs as the Biden administration backs Israel in its conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and seeks to contain hostilities by Iran-allied armed groups in the region.
The financial toll is on top of the cost in human lives: Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in Israel a year ago and took others hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 42,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
At least 1,400 people in Lebanon, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed since Israel greatly expanded its strikes in that country in late September.
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.
Here’s a look at where some of the US taxpayer money went:
Record military aid to Israel
Israel — a protege of the United States since its 1948 founding — is the biggest recipient of US military aid in history, getting $251.2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1959, the report says.
Even so, the $17.9 billion spent since Oct. 7, 2023, in inflation-adjusted dollars, is by far the most military aid sent to Israel in one year. The US committed to providing billions in military assistance to Israel and Egypt each year when they signed their 1979 US-brokered peace treaty, and an agreement since the Obama administration set the annual amount for Israel at $3.8 billion through 2028.
The US aid since the Gaza war started includes military financing, arms sales, at least $4.4 billion in drawdowns from US stockpiles and hand-me-downs of used equipment.
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 said.
They cited Biden administration “efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering.”
Funding for the key US ally during a war that has exacted a heavy toll on civilians has divided Americans during the presidential campaign. But support for Israel has long carried weight in US politics, and Biden said Friday that “no administration has helped Israel more than I have.”
US military operations in the Middle East
The Biden administration has bolstered its military strength in the region since the war in Gaza started, aiming to deter and respond to any attacks on Israeli and American forces.
Those additional operations cost at least $4.86 billion, the report said, not including beefed-up US military aid to Egypt and other partners in the region.
The US had 34,000 forces in the Middle East the day that Hamas broke through Israeli barricades around Gaza to attack. That number rose to about 50,000 in August when two aircraft carriers were in the region, aiming to discourage retaliation after a strike attributed to Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. The total is now around 43,000.
The number of US vessels and aircraft deployed — aircraft carrier strike groups, an amphibious ready group, fighter squadrons, and air defense batteries — in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has varied during the year.
The Pentagon has said another aircraft carrier strike group is headed to Europe very soon and that could increase the troop total again if two carriers are again in the region at the same time.
The fight against the Houthis
The US military has deployed since the start of the war to try to counter escalated strikes by the Houthis, an armed faction that controls Yemen’s capital and northern areas, and has been firing on merchant ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Gaza. The researchers called the $4.86 billion cost to the US an “unexpectedly complicated and asymmetrically expensive challenge.”
Houthis have kept launching attacks on ships traversing the critical trade route, drawing US strikes on launch sites and other targets. The campaign has become the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.
“The US has deployed multiple aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers and expensive multimillion-dollar missiles against cheap Iranian-made Houthi drones that cost $2,000,” the authors said.
Just Friday, the US military struck more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen, going after weapons systems, bases and other equipment, officials said.
The researchers’ calculations included at least $55 million in additional combat pay from the intensified operations in the region.
US spends a record $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since last Oct. 7
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US spends a record $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since last Oct. 7
- An additional $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up US military operations in the region since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks
Syria extends deadline for probe into killings of Alawites
- President Ahmed Al-Sharaa grants fact-finding committee three month extension to identify perpetrators
- Human rights groups say more than 1,000 civilians — mostly Alawites were killed in violence last month
BEIRUT: Syria’s presidency announced on Friday that it would extend a probe into the killings of Alawite civilians in coastal areas that left hundreds dead after clashes between government forces and armed groups loyal to former President Bashar Assad spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks.
The violence erupted on March 6 after Assad loyalists ambushed patrols of the new government, prompting Islamist-led groups to launch coordinated assaults on Latakia, Baniyas, and other coastal areas.
According to human rights groups, more than 1,000 civilians — mostly Alawites, an Islamic minority to which Assad belongs — were killed in retaliatory attacks, including home raids, executions, and arson, displacing thousands.
The sectarian violence was possibly among the bloodiest 72 hours in Syria’s modern history, including the 14 years of civil war from which the country is now emerging. The violence brought fear of a renewed civil war and threatened to open an endless cycle of vengeance, driving thousands of Alawites to flee their homes, with an estimated 30,000 seeking refuge in northern Lebanon.
On March 9, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group, formed a fact-finding committee and gave it 30 days to report its findings and identify perpetrators. In a decree published late Thursday, Sharaa said the committee had requested more time and was granted a three-month non-renewable extension.
The committee’s spokesperson, Yasser Farhan, said in a statement on Friday that the committee has recorded 41 sites where killings took place, each forming the basis for a separate case and requiring more time to gather evidence. He said some areas remained inaccessible due to time constraints, but that residents had cooperated, despite threats from pro-Assad remnants.
In a report published on April 3, Amnesty International said its probe into the killings concluded that at least 32 of more than 100 people killed in the town of Baniyas were deliberately targeted on sectarian grounds — a potential war crime.
The rights organization welcomed the committee’s formation but stressed it must be independent, properly resourced, and granted full access to burial sites and witnesses to conduct a credible investigation. It also said the committee should be granted “adequate time to complete the investigation.”
Witnesses to the killings identified the attackers as hard-line Sunni Islamists, including Syria-based jihadi foreign fighters and members of former rebel factions that took part in the offensive that overthrew Assad. However, many were also local Sunnis, seeking revenge for past atrocities blamed on Alawites loyal to Assad.
While some Sunnis hold the Alawite community responsible for Assad’s brutal crackdowns, Alawites themselves say they also suffered under his rule.
Erdogan accuses Israel of seeking to ‘dynamite’ Syria ‘revolution’
- Turkish president says Israel is turning minorities in Syria against the government
ANTALYA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused Israel of sowing divisions in Syria in a bid to “dynamite” the “revolution” that toppled strongman Bashar Assad.
Turkiye is a key backer of Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the rebel coalition which ousted Assad in December.
“Israel is trying to dynamite the December 8 revolution by stirring up ethnic and religious affiliations and turning minorities in Syria against the government,” Erdogan told a diplomacy forum in the southern Mediterranean resort of Antalya.
Erdogan’s comments come as officials from Turkiye and Israel began talks this week aimed at easing tensions over Syria.
Israel has launched air strikes and ground incursions to keep Syrian forces away from its border.
“Israel is turning into a problematic country that directly threatens the stability of the region, especially with its attacks on Lebanon and Syria,” Erdogan said.
He also said Israeli strikes were denting efforts to combat the Daesh jihadist group.
Paramilitary attack on Sudan famine-hit camp kills 25: activists
- Shelling and intense gunfire targeted the Zamzam displacement camp near El-Fasher on Friday
PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Friday killed 25 civilians including women and children, in an attack on a famine-stricken camp in Sudan’s North Darfur state, activists said.
The attack, which involved shelling and intense gunfire, “targeted Zamzam displacement camp from both the southern and eastern directions,” said the local resistance committee, a volunteer aid group in North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher.
Zamzam and other densely populated camps for the displaced around El-Fasher have suffered heavily during nearly two years of fighting between Sudan’s army and the RSF.
The paramilitaries have stepped up its efforts to complete their conquest of Darfur, Sudan’s vast western region, since losing control of the capital Khartoum last month.
Eyewitnesses described seeing RSF combat vehicles infiltrating the camp under cover of heavy gunfire.
The local resistance committee said the attack was met with counter-fire but the full extent of damage was unclear due to disrupted communications and Internet shutdowns.
Zamzam was the first part of Sudan where a UN-backed assessment declared famine last year.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million since a struggle for power between rival generals erupted into full-blown war on April 15, 2023.
More Sudanese refugees fleeing as far as Europe, UN refugee agency says
- Olga Sarrado, UN refugee agency spokesperson, told a press briefing in Geneva that some 484 Sudanese had arrived in Europe in January and February, up 38 percent from the same period last year
GENEVA: Over a thousand Sudanese refugees have reached or attempted to reach Europe in early 2025, the United Nations’ refugee agency said on Friday, citing growing desperation in part due to reduced aid in the region.
Some 12 million people have been displaced by the two-year conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has fueled what UN officials call the world’s most devastating aid crisis.
While some have recently returned home to Khartoum, millions of others in neighboring countries like Egypt and Chad face tough choices as services for refugees are being cut, including by the United States as part of an aid review.
Olga Sarrado, UN refugee agency spokesperson, told a press briefing in Geneva that some 484 Sudanese had arrived in Europe in January and February, up 38 percent from the same period last year.
Around 937 others were rescued or intercepted at sea and returned to Libya — more than double last year’s figures for the same period, she added.
“As humanitarian aid crumbles and if the war does not abate, many more will have little choice than to join them,” she said.
Migrant deaths hit a record last year, the UN migration agency said, with many perishing on the Mediterranean crossing which is one of the world’s most dangerous.
UN: 36 Israeli strikes in Gaza killed ‘only women and children’
- Family of 10 killed in Israeli airstrike on Friday
- UN rights office spokesperson warns the military strikes across Gaza were ‘leaving nowhere safe’
GAZA: Dozens of Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed “only women and children” after a ceasefire collapsed, the UN said, as an Israeli attack in the territory’s south on Friday left a family of 10 dead.
A UN rights office report also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas, raising “real concern as to the future viability of Palestinians as a group in Gaza.”
Israel’s military said it was looking into the attack that killed members of the same family in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, adding separately that it had struck approximately 40 “terror targets” across the territory over the past day.
Israel resumed its Gaza strikes on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
Since then, more than 1,500 people have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory to which Israel cut off aid more than a month ago.
“Ten people, including seven children, were brought to the hospital as martyrs following an Israeli air strike that targeted the Farra family home in central Khan Yunis,” civil defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
AFP footage of the aftermath showed several bodies wrapped in white shrouds and blankets, and footage of the house showed mangled concrete slabs and twisted metal.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed denounced Israel, saying: “If this is not barbarism, I ask you, what is it?“
Early Friday, Israel’s military issued an evacuation warning to residents of several areas east of Gaza City ahead of a new offensive there.
The UN decried the impact of the ongoing Israeli strikes, finding that “a large percentage of fatalities are children and women.”
“Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,” the UN human rights office said in Geneva.
“In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children.”
Israel’s military has repeatedly said Palestinian militants often hide among civilians, a charge Hamas denies.
UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani also raised concerns over “the denial of access to basic necessities within Gaza and the repeated suggestion that Gazans should leave the territory entirely.”
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, after meeting regional counterparts in Turkiye, urged “maximum pressure to ensure” aid is delivered into Gaza.
The war broke out after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Gaza’s health ministry said Friday at least 1,542 Palestinians have been killed since March 18, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,912.
A truce brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar that took effect on January 19 and lasted until March 17 saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of them in coffins, in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinian prisoners.
In a Passover holiday message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his pledge to bring the remaining captives home.
He spoke after US President Donald Trump suggested progress in hostage release talks, telling a cabinet meeting on Thursday that “we’re getting close to getting them back.”
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was also quoted in an Israeli media report as saying “a very serious deal is taking shape, it’s a matter of days.”
Israeli media reported Friday that Egypt and Israel had exchanged draft documents on a ceasefire-hostage release deal.
The Times of Israel said Egypt’s proposal would mean eight living hostages and eight bodies released in exchange for a truce of between 40 and 70 days and a large number of Palestinian prisoner releases.
A senior Hamas leader who declined to be identified told journalists the group had “not received any new ceasefire offer.”
“The movement is open to any new proposal that would achieve a ceasefire, withdraw the occupation’s forces, and end the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
In his message for Passover — a holiday celebrating the biblical liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt — Netanyahu said that “together we will return our hostages.”
He has insisted that increased military pressure is the only way to get the captives home.
