U.S. rushes extra bombs to Israel

The photo shows how rushed delivery bombs will be used. Lebanese rescue workers carry a dead body from a building destroyed by Israeli warplanes after they blasted communications and television transmission towers in the northern Lebanese mountains Saturday, July 22, 2006 knocking off the air a leading private network and cutting phone links to some regions, police said. Fighter bombers fired three missiles at the transmission station at Fatqa in the Keserwan mountains, knocking out transmission antennas. The raid on Keserwan was the first major airstrike in the Christian heartland of Lebanon in the 11-day-old Israeli aerial bombardment, which has hammered mainly Shiite regions in the south and east as well as south Beirut. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

From the New York Times:

>>Pentagon and military officials declined to describe in detail the size and contents of the shipment to Israel, and they would not say whether the munitions were being shipped by cargo aircraft or some other means. But an arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28’s, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions.

An announcement in 2005 that Israel was eligible to buy the “bunker buster” weapons described the GBU-28 as “a special weapon that was developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground.” The document added, “The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28’s on their F-15 aircraft.”