The United States spent over $22 billion on military aid to Israel and related operations between Oct. 7 of last year and Sept. 30, 2024, according to a research article released by the Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
This figure includes $17.9 billion in U.S. security assistance to Israel and $4.86 billion spent on U.S. military operations “against Houthis in and around Yemen,” according to the paper.
“$17.9 billion is the most the U.S. has ever provided Israel in a single year,” said Stephen Semler, a co-author of the paper. Semler noted the previous highest amounts provided by the U.S. came after the Camp David peace accords for the Egypt-Israel conflict and when former president Richard Nixon "bailed out Israel" in 1973.
The new record funding levels come from Israel’s intense military operation in Gaza and the Middle East that followed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Semler said. He said Israel’s campaign constitutes genocide, which is “the single worst act that humans can do to one another.”
The report is divided into four parts — U.S. support for Israel’s military operations, historical context, the broader economic costs of recent U.S. engagement in the Middle East and a list of weapons companies that benefit from the spending.
The paper characterized $17.9 billion as a conservative estimate. The estimate included an approximate cost of operations, approved security assistance funding and funding for regional operations, but did not include other potential costs, such as commitments to future spending.
Determining these spending estimates was not a simple process, Semler said. “You have to effectively become a lawyer” to read the legislation allocating funds for Israel and make sense of it, he explained.
Many of the numbers are available through public sources, said William Hartung, another co-author of the paper. But, while the Pentagon and the State Department regularly share military aid numbers, researchers had to “dig a bit” for other factors, he said.
“There’s a stockpile of weapons in Israel, and it took some journalistic digging to find out how much there was,” Hartung said. He and other researchers scoured logs of aid shipments and excess defense article programs, where extra defense equipment is given to other governments or organizations “for free or for the cost of transportation,” he said.
The Costs of War project emerged in 2010 in order to provide the “fullest possible account” of “the human, economic, political and environmental costs” of the U.S. at war. The project aims to inform U.S. foreign and domestic policies, according to its website.
“The project aims to encourage Americans to think critically, ask the big picture questions, and hold the U.S. government accountable in regards to war,” said Stephanie Savell, the director of the Costs of War project and a senior fellow at Watson. Contributors often work to garner media attention when a paper is released, hoping to shape public conversations, Savell added.
An AP exclusive article regarding the paper was reprinted over 700 times in major news outlets, such as the Washington Post, and was featured over 150 times on broadcast television, according to Savell.
Savell added that discussion surrounding the money spent on war cannot occur without “talking about the human toll as well.”
A companion paper released by the Costs of War project discussed both the direct and indirect human toll that have resulted from the Israel-Hamas war. According to the paper, 96% of Gaza’s population faces acute food insecurity and over 62,000 people in Gaza have died of starvation since Oct. 7 of last year.
“That’s a dramatic human impact,” Hartung said. “Combined with the fact that U.S. taxpayers are paying to make it happen, I think we’re hoping the paper will get people to think twice about staying quiet and to actually come out and oppose these policies.”
“Our government is enabling war crimes, and some analysts even have called it a genocide,” Hartung added. “The U.S. is complicit in these crimes and it’s going to have a negative effect on relationships with countries all over the world.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Stephen Semler directly referred to Israel's campaign as "the single worst act that humans can do to one another." The article has been updated with a correct reflection of his quote. The Herald regrets the error.
Claire Song is a Senior Staff Writer covering science & research. She is a sophomore from California studying Applied Math-Biology. She likes to drink boba in her free time.
