LONDON (Dispatches) -- For over a week, the occupying regime of Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with bombs, claiming it is targeting Hamas. But residential buildings, book stores, hospitals and the main Covid-19 testing lab have also been flattened.
The Zionist regime’s ongoing bombardment of the besieged enclave, which has now martyred at least 219 people, including 63 children and 36 women, likely constitutes a war crime, according to Amnesty International.
The Zionist regime has state of the art, precision weaponry and its own booming arms industry. It is the eighth biggest arms exporter on the planet.
Israel’s military arsenal is also propped up by imports of billions of dollars worth of weapons from abroad.
These are the countries and companies supplying the occupying regime with weapons, despite its track record of war crimes accusations.

United States

The United States is by far the biggest exporter of arms to the Zionist regime. Between 2009-2020, more than 70 percent of the arms the Zionist regime bought came from the U.S., according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) Arms Transfers database, which only includes major conventional weapons.
According to Sipri numbers, the U.S. has exported arms to Occupied Palestine every year since 1961.
It’s harder to track arms that have actually been delivered, but between 2013-2017, the U.S. delivered $4.9bn (£3.3bn) in arms to the regime, according to the UK-based Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).
U.S.-made bombs have been photographed in Gaza in recent days, too.
The exports have increased despite the numerous times that Zionist forces have been accused of committing war crimes against Palestinians.
The U.S. continued to export weapons to Occupied Palestine when it emerged in 2009, for example, that Zionist forces had indiscriminately used white phosphorus shells on Palestinians - a war crime, according to Human Rights Watch.
In 2014, Amnesty International accused Israel of the same charge for disproportionate attacks that martyred scores of civilians in Rafah, southern Gaza. The following year, the export value of U.S. weapons to Occupied Palestine almost doubled, according to Sipri figures.
U.S. President Joe Biden “expressed his support for a ceasefire” on Monday, under pressure from Senate Democrats. But it also emerged earlier in the day that his administration had recently approved $735m in weapons sales to Occupied Palestine, the Washington Post reported.
And under a security assistance agreement spanning 2019-2028, the U.S. has agreed - subject to congressional approval - to give the occupying regime of $3.8bn annually in foreign military financing, most of which it has to spend on U.S.-made weapons.

That’s around 20 percent of Israel’s military budget, according to NBC, and almost three-fifths of U.S. foreign military financing worldwide.
But the U.S. also sometimes gives additional funds, on top of its annual contribution. It has given an extra $1.6bn since 2011 for the Zionist regime’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, with parts that are made in the U.S.
“Israel has a very advanced arms industry that could likely sustain the bombardment for at least a short period of time,” Andrew Smith of CAAT told Middle East Eye.
“However, its major combat aircraft come from the U.S.,” he added, referring to U.S. F-16 fighter jets, which continue to pummel the Strip. “Even if the capacity to build them exists in Israel, they would obviously take a long time to assemble.
The long list of private U.S. companies involved in supplying the occupying regime of Israel with arms includes Lockheed Martin, Boeing; Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Ametek, UTC Aerospace, and Raytheon, according to CAAT.

Germany

The second-biggest exporter of weapons to the Zionist regime is Germany, which accounted for 24 percent of Israel’s arms imports between 2009-2020.
Germany does not provide data on the weapons it delivers, but it issued licenses for arms sales to the Zionist regime worth 1.6 billion euros ($1.93bn) from 2013-2017, according to CAAT.
Sipri figures show Germany sold weapons to Israel throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and has done so every year since 1994.
The first military talks between the two regimes date back to 1957, according to Haaretz, which noted that in 1960, prime minister David Ben-Gurion met in New York with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and emphasized “Israel’s need for small submarines and anti-aircraft missiles”.
While the U.S. has helped with many of Israel’s air defense needs, Germany still provides submarines.
German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems has built six Dolphin submarines for the occupying regime of Israel, according to CAAT, while the German-headquartered company Renk AG helps equip Israel’s Merkava tanks.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced “solidarity” with the Zionist regime in a call with Netanyahu on Monday, according to her spokesperson, reaffirming the country’s “right to defend itself” against rocket attacks from Hamas.

Italy

Italy is next, having provided 5.6 percent of the Zionist regime’s major arms imports between 2009-2020, according to Sipri.
From 2013-2017, Italy delivered €476m ($581m) worth of arms to Occupied Palestine, according to CAAT.
The two sides have done deals in recent years whereby Israel has got training aircraft in return for missiles and other weapons, according to Defense News.
Italy joined other European countries in criticizing Israeli settlements in Sheikh Jarrah and elsewhere earlier in May, but the country continues to export weapons.
Port workers in Livorno refused on Friday to load a ship carrying weapons to the occupied port of Ashdod, after being notified by Italian NGO The Weapon Watch of the contents of its cargo.
“The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people,” the Unione Sindicale di Base said in a statement.
Weapon Watch urged Italian authorities to suspend “some or all Italian military exports to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict areas”.
AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of Italian firm Leonardo, makes components for Apache attack helicopters used by Israel, according to CAAT.

United Kingdom

The UK, though not in Sipri’s database in recent years, also sells weapons to the Zionist regime, and has licensed £400m in arms since 2015, according to CAAT.
The NGO is calling for the UK to end weapons sales and military support to Zionist forces and investigate if UK arms have been used to bomb Gaza.
The actual amount the UK exports to Occupied Palestine is far higher than publicly available numbers, due to an opaque system of weapons sales, “open licenses”, basically permissions to export, which keep the value of arms and their quantities secret.
Smith of CAAT told MEE that roughly 30-40 percent of UK arms sales to the occupying regime are likely done under open license, but “we simply don’t know” which weapons they are or how they are used.
Private British companies that help supply Israel with arms or military hardware include BAE Systems; Atlas Elektronik UK; MPE; Meggitt, Penny + Giles Controls; Redmayne Engineering; Senior PLC; Land Rover; and G4S, according to CAAT.
What’s more, the UK spends millions of pounds annually on Israeli weapons systems. Elbit Systems, the Zionist regime’s largest arms producer, has several subsidiaries in the UK, as do several US arms manufacturers.
One of their factories in Oldham has been a target for pro-Palestine protesters in recent months.
Many of the weapons exported by the UK to Occupied Palestine - including aircraft, drones, grenades, bombs, missiles and ammunition - “are the kind of arms that are likely to be used in this sort of bombing campaign”, according to a CAAT statement, referring to the ongoing bombardment.
“It would not be the first time,” it added.
A government review in 2014 found 12 licenses for arms likely used in that year’s bombardment of Gaza, while in 2010, then-Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that arms made in the UK had “almost certainly” been used in Israel’s 2009 bombing campaign of the enclave.

Canada

Canada accounted for around 0.3 percent of the occupying regime of Israel’s imports of major conventional weapons between 2009-2021, according to Sipri numbers.
Jagmeet Singh of Canada’s New Democratic Party last week called for Canada to halt arms sales to Israel in light of recent events.
Canada sent $13.7m in military hardware and technology to the Zionist regime in 2019, equating to 0.4 percent of total arms exports, according to The Globe and Mail.