The New York Times and CNN are reporting today on the weapons used by Israel in an attack on Gaza that killed 45 people, most of them civilians.
“The remains of explosives filmed at the scene of the attack the next day were taken from a GBU-39 bomb designed and manufactured in the United States,” the Times added, as quoted by Spanish news agency EFE.
CNN also claims that “US-made munitions were used in the deadly Israeli attack,” and a video showing the tail of a GBU-39 small-diameter bomb (SDB) is being shared on social media.
Asked by reporters, White House spokesman John Kirby declined to confirm whether Israel had used a US-made bomb.
An Israeli airstrike on Sunday hit a tent camp for displaced people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where the war has killed some 36,000 people, more than 70% of them civilians.
The dead were in the so-called “safe zone” in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood northwest of Rafah, where hundreds of people were displaced in an advanced camp that Israel has not yet ordered to leave.
Following news of the incident, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the civilian deaths in Rafah a “tragic accident” and promised to launch an investigation.
The Pentagon said the scope of the operation in Rafah was considered limited, and while it deemed it “horrendous,” it asked to wait for the results of the Israeli investigation: “We continue to think it was a limited operation,” the spokesman said. Pentagon Deputy Sabrina Singh.
The US has already threatened to cut off arms supplies to Israel if it continues to attack Rafah.
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