A Brief History of the 2,000-Pound Bombs Central to U.S.-Israeli Tensions

When President Biden threatened to pause some weapons shipments to Israel if it invaded the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the devastating effects of one weapon were of particular concern to him.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs,” Mr. Biden said in remarks to CNN this week.

He was referring to U.S.-made 2,000-pound aerial weapons, the largest in the Pentagon’s Mark 80 series of bombs.

In the military’s banal lexicon, the Mark 80s are “general purpose” bombs, meaning that they can be used on almost any target the military typically expects to encounter in war. In addition to the 2,000-pound Mk-84, they also come in 250-pound, 500-pound and 1,000-pound versions — the Mk-81, Mk-82 and Mk-83.

The president has already delayed a shipment to Israel of 3,500 bombs in the Mark 80 series that he feared could be used in a major assault on Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians have taken refuge.

A New York Times investigation in December found that American 2,000-pound bombs were responsible for some of the worst attacks on Palestinian civilians since the war in Gaza began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.