The Biden administration has released about half of the shipment of heavy bombs it has withheld from Israel since May over concerns the IDF would use them in densely populated areas of Gaza, a US official tells The Times of Israel.

In May, the White House announced a decision to withhold a shipment of 1,800 2,000-lb bombs and 1,700 500-lb bombs, with US President Joe Biden threatening to freeze additional offensive weaponry if Israel launched a major military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah where over one million Palestinians were sheltering at the time.