U.S. Aid to Israel and to Palestinians

The U.S. provides Israel more than $10.8 million* in military aid per day,
while it gives the Palestinians $1.9 million** per day in foreign (non-military) aid.

Direct aid, transfers, and bilateral programs

*In fiscal year 2025 (October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025), the United States provided Israel with $3.95 billion in military aid and other direct funding.

The Congressional Research Service reports $3.8 billion in regular FY2025 aid to Israel: $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing and $500 million for missile defense. Adding smaller Israel-specific defense programs, civilian cooperation, equipment grants, and other recorded payments brings documented direct support to approximately $3,948,292,558.

Roughly 99.5% of this expanded total was military or defense-related. In addition to its $3.3 billion military grant, Israel received funding for missile defense, anti-tunnel technology, counter-drone systems, emerging military technology, and surplus U.S. military equipment.

The $3.95 billion figure combines appropriations, allocated program funding, equipment value, and recorded disbursements. It excludes prior-year emergency appropriations already counted in 2024, weapons sales, loan guarantees, and indirect costs such as U.S. military operations defending Israel.

Foreign Military Financing grant

• $3.3 billion: Annual Foreign Military Financing grant used by Israel to purchase weapons, equipment, and military services.
• $450.3 million: Portion Israel was permitted to spend through its own defense industry. This is contained within the $3.3 billion and is not additional aid.

Source: CRS, updated May 28, 2025

Cooperative missile defense

• $300 million: Missile-defense research, development, testing, and evaluation.
• $110 million: Iron Dome procurement.
• $40 million: David’s Sling procurement.
• $50 million: Arrow III procurement.

Source: Department of Defense FY2025 funding tables

Other bilateral defense programs

• $47.5 million: U.S.-Israel anti-tunnel program.
• $55 million: Counter-drone development, including directed-energy and laser technology.
• $20 million: Emerging military-technology cooperation.

Source: Department of Defense

Refugee, energy, and health programs

• $5 million: Assistance for refugees resettling in Israel. White House budget appendix
• $4 million: U.S.-Israel Energy Center of Excellence.
• $2 million: Binational Industrial Research and Development Energy Program. Department of Energy
• $4 million: Bilateral health-security and medical-technology innovation. CDC

Sources: White House budget appendix, Department of Energy, CDC

Military equipment and other recorded payments

• $5,572,360: Excess Defense Articles transferred to Israel at their reported current value.
• $3,427,320: American Schools and Hospitals Abroad and related development payments.
• $1,134,268: Nonproliferation and related security assistance.
• $294,643: Economic Support Fund payments.
• $222,441: International law-enforcement assistance.
• $133,586: Forestry activity coded to Israel, although the program assisted Palestinian youth.
• $7,640: Humanitarian-program administrative costs.
• $300: Federal Aviation Administration training.

Source: ForeignAssistance.gov transaction records.

The United States spends more on military aid to Israel than to any other country. Israel receives this extraordinary amount of money even though it is the 22nd wealthiest country in the world.

Indirect costs of the U.S. - Israel special relationship

United States incurred approximately $8.06 billion to $10.46 billion in documented and estimated indirect costs connected to its relationship with Israel during FY2025. This includes regional military operations associated with the Gaza war, Iran, and Houthi attacks, plus assistance to countries involved in maintaining Arab-Israeli peace arrangements.

These operations arose from regional escalation tied to Israel’s war in Gaza and the U.S. commitment to defend Israel. Their costs—including bombing campaigns, carrier deployments, missile interceptions, equipment losses, and logistics—were borne by U.S. taxpayers.

Combined, the direct and indirect costs amounted to approximately $32.9 million to $39.5 million every day in FY2025.

Regional military operations

• $2.04–$2.26 billion: U.S. strikes on Iran and military defense of Israel, including approximately 150 THAAD interceptor missiles, bombers, bunker-buster bombs, Tomahawk missiles, support aircraft, and logistics.
• $2.76–$4.95 billion: Operations against the Houthis and in the Red Sea, including carrier strike groups, airstrikes, bombs, missiles, equipment transport, and three lost F/A-18 aircraft.

Source: Brown University Costs of War.

Aid connected to regional peace and security arrangements

• $1.425 billion for Egypt: $1.3 billion in military financing and $125 million in economic assistance. U.S. administrations have repeatedly justified aid to Egypt partly as sustaining the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Congressional Research Service
• $1.65 billion for Jordan: Economic and military assistance. Jordan is a major U.S. partner and has maintained a peace treaty with Israel since 1994. Its aid also supports Jordanian stability, refugees, economic development, and other U.S. objectives. Congressional Research Service
• At least $150 million in additional Jordanian security assistance: Separate Defense Department funding for Jordan’s armed forces and border security.
• $34 million for the Multinational Force and Observers: The international force that monitors the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. FY2025 apportionment

Sources: Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations (CRS), Jordan: Background and U.S. Relations (CRS), FY2025 apportionment

A note about our methodology: Calculating the full cost of U.S. support for Israel is extremely difficult because no single government source provides a complete total. Funding is scattered among numerous agencies and programs, sometimes under multiyear authority, while public records may report proposals, authorizations, appropriations, allocations, obligations, disbursements, statutory minimums or ceilings, and actual expenditures—figures that are not interchangeable or always additive. Other support takes the form of equipment transfers, loan guarantees, contracts, joint programs that only partly support Israel, and regional military operations whose connection to Israel requires careful assessment. We have reviewed official records and credible secondary sources, identified estimates and uncertain items wherever possible, and made every effort to present factual, accurate figures without counting the same funds more than once.

For aid to Palestinians, see here.

For aid to Israel in previous years, see below.

The Real Costs to US Taxpayers

'The Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans' Booklet Cost: $1 + postage Size: 5.5 x 8.5 Status: In Stock Download PDF

In addition to this direct aid to Israel:

• Israel gets most of its aid money at the start of each year, rather than in quarterly installments like other countries.
• This means that Israel starts earning interest on the money right away – interest paid by the US since Israel deposits these funds into an interest-bearing account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
• Because the US government operates at a deficit, it must borrow money in order to give it to Israel and then pay interest on it all year.
• Together these have at times cost US taxpayers more than $100 million every year.

Like many government policies, this disbursement of U.S. tax money is not because it serves American interests, but instead is the result of special interest lobbying.

Another Unique Exception

Unlike other regular recipients of U.S. military assistance, Israel has a standing exception allowing part of its Foreign Military Financing grant to be used for defense articles, services, and research and development procured in Israel. Under the previous aid agreement, Israel could use as much as 26.3 percent of its FMF this way. The current agreement is phasing out this exception: for FY2025, Congress designated "not less than" $450.3 million—13.6 percent of Israel’s $3.3 billion FMF grant—for procurement in Israel. The allowance is scheduled to fall to $250.3 million in FY2026 and FY2027 and to zero in FY2028. CRS has described Israel as the only FMF recipient with this regular domestic-procurement privilege.

Ending OSP will not necessarily end Israeli defense firms’ access to contracts financed by U.S. military aid. CRS reports that Israeli arms manufacturers have already established U.S. subsidiaries and production partnerships; qualifying U.S.-incorporated entities can receive FMF-financed contracts with Israel, subject to U.S. approval. This integration is increasingly reflected in federal law: the FY2025 NDAA directed the Pentagon to seek a partnership intended to expand market opportunities for U.S.- and Israeli-based defense-technology companies, while the FY2026 NDAA required a working group to study greater integration of the two countries’ defense industries and Israel’s possible inclusion in the U.S. National Technology and Industrial Base.

Thanks in part to this indirect U.S. subsidy, Israel’s arms industry has become one of the strongest in the world, and competes with US companies. Between 2001 and 2008, Israel was the 7th largest arms supplier to the world, selling $9.9 billion worth of equipment. And it continues to grow stronger. In 2021, Israel sold $11.3 billion in military goods to other countries.

The former assistant Secretary of Defense from 2007 to 2009 asked, "How inexplicable is it that we are competing against the Israelis in the Indian defense procurement market at the same time we are subsidizing the Israeli defense industry?"

By all accounts the United States has given more money to Israel than to any other country. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of January 2023, in constant 2021 U.S. dollars (inflation-adjusted), total U.S. aid to Israel obligated from 1946-2023 is an estimated $260 billion.

The United States has granted more total aid to Israel since World War II than to any other country.

Cumulative US foreign assistance obligations between 1946 and 2022 to the top ten recipients. Inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars. (source)

Aid to Palestinians

** Fiscal Year 2025:

In FY2025, the United States disbursed at least $679,071,222 in assistance traceable to Palestinians and Palestinian humanitarian efforts.

Of this total, $506.87 million was humanitarian assistance providing food, healthcare, shelter, water and sanitation, protection, and aid-delivery support amid the Gaza war, Israeli military operations, mass displacement, destruction, and restrictions on humanitarian access. Another $172.20 million supported health, education, economic development, governance, nonlethal security programs, and administration.

Breakdown

The money was generally paid to NGOs, UN agencies, contractors, and other organizations delivering or administering assistance—not handed directly to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

Important context: This assistance should not be mistaken for a comparable benefit voluntarily bestowed on Palestinians. Most of it—particularly the $506.9 million in humanitarian spending—was required at its present scale because of Israel’s war on Gaza and its occupation and blockade of Palestinian territories. It paid for food, medical treatment, shelter, sanitation, and other emergency needs amid widespread starvation, malnutrition, disease, injury, displacement, destruction, and death. Much of this spending is therefore better understood as the cost of responding to human suffering created by Israeli policies and military operations—operations the United States simultaneously supports with weapons and billions of dollars in military aid.

Sources: ForeignAssistance.gov West Bank/Gaza data, regional humanitarian transactions, and State Department OIG, CRS, USAID OIG

Fiscal Year 2024:

In FY2024, the United States disbursed approximately $1.164 billion in humanitarian aid to Palestinian relief efforts.

• April 24, 2024: National Security Supplemental passed with $1 billion for additional humanitarian aid to Gaza.
• June 11, 2024: The State Department announced $64 million to USAID to support humanitarian aid in Gaza.
• July 11, 2024: USAID announced additional $100 million in humanitarian aid.

Sources: OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. Agency for International Development

H.R.815 - "Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes"

For additional information see: The Congressional Research Service's Report The Palestinians: Overview, Aid, and U.S. Policy Issues, (Updated January 24, 2024), “U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians”, written by Jim Zanotti, Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs, dated May 18, 2018; U.S. Resumption of Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, April 14, 2021; and The Palestinians: Background and U.S. Relations, October 27, 2022.

The U.S. government has never provided Palestinians with military aid. "The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2015 (H.R. 4870), which passed the House in June 2014, contained provisions that would prohibit funds made available by the act from being obligated to the PA (§10033) or from being used to transfer weapons to the PA (§10024)."

Aid to Palestinians is largely designated for humanitarian and development needs that result from the Israeli occupation and to the Palestinian Authority for policing on behalf of Israel. Such funds are only authorized once Congress has received proof that they will be used for "non-lethal assistance." The most recent CRS report on Palestinian aid states that Palestinian groups received $225 million in economic assistance and $42 million for non-lethal security for FY 2023.

Regarding U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, many Palestinian experts assert that the support actually helps Israel maintain its illegal occupation of Palestinian land. "Security collaboration" between the PA and Israel means that Palestinian police are being outsourced to monitor and respond to Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation or protesting against Israel's assaults on Gaza.

In addition, much of the "humanitarian aid" is dispensed on behalf of Israel.

(Source)

(For expenditures on behalf of Israel, go here.)

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided the Palestinian people with some indirect economic assistance through funds distributed to U.S.-based NGOs operating in the West Bank and Gaza. According to CRS, "Funds are allocated in this program for projects in sectors such as humanitarian assistance, economic development, democratic reform, improving water access and other infrastructure, health care, education, and vocational training." The program is subject to a vetting process and to yearly audits...

Since its creation in 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has received financial backing from each presidential administration, whether Democrat or Republican. The UNRWA “provides food, shelter, medical care, and education for many of the original refugees from the 1947-1949 Arab-Israeli war and their families—now comprising approximately 5 million Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza." (Learn more about Palestinian refugees.)

UPDATE: On January 26, 2024, the Biden Administration temporarily “paused” all U.S. funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), citing allegations (without evidence) that 12 UNRWA employees (out of a staff of 13,000 in Gaza) were involved in the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Though the United States’ yearly allocation to the UNRWA typically amounted to less than one tenth of its military aid to Israel each year, the funds nonetheless made up nearly a third of the agency’s annual budget. In August of 2018, the Trump administration’s State Department issued a press release announcing an indefinite cessation of all UNRWA funding from the United States effective immediately, a decision described by the UN Commissioner-General as the agency’s “greatest financial crisis in its history.” UNRWA funding resumed under the Biden administration in 2021.

Additionally, "about $50 million in US assistance to the Palestinians does not flow directly to the PA but instead to Israel, which uses the money in part to pay off Palestinian debts to Israeli service providers such as electricity companies."

U.S. aid to the PA also makes it easier and cheaper for Israel to spend its own US aid on security for its Jewish-only settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land, which is illegal under international law. Recent research has shown that at least 78% of international aid money to the West Bank and Gaza ends up in Israel's economy.

Aid to Israel in Previous Years

Fiscal Year 2024:

• In September 2024, the U.S. secured an $8.7 billion aid package for Israel.
• In April 2024, Congress approved $14.3 billion in emergency military assistance.
• This amounts to $63 million per day or $23 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel in a single year.

Sources: The Hill, International Jewish News, C-SPAN, AIPAC

From October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, the U.S. gave Israel a total of at least $17.9 billion. This works out to $49,041,095.89 per day. The Watson Institute document reports the following specifics:

• On April 24, 2024, President Biden signed into law H.R. 815 giving $14.1 billion in military aid to Israel and $1 billion in humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
• In September 2016, the Obama and Netanyahu administrations signed a new ten-year non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) where the U.S. pledged to give Israel $38 billion in military aid ($33 billion in FMF grants plus $5 billion in missile defense) over the course of 10 years (FY2019 to FY2028). This new MOU replaced the $30 billion 10-year agreement signed by the Bush Administration that expired in 2018.
• In addition to the $17.9 billion given directly to Israel, additional funds are spent as a result of Israel's actions. One example is the added expense incurred by the U.S. Navy to defend maritime trade in the region, which has been threatened by the Houthis as a direct result of Israel's war in Gaza. For the period from October 7, 2023 through October 7, 2024, this expenditure totalled $4.86 billion, bringing the total amount spent, in a single year, on behalf of Israel to $22.76 billion (or $62.4 million per day.)
  
  [Note: On top this $4.86 billion spent as a result of Israel's actions, there is typically more than $3 billion of additional funding spent on behalf of Israel. See this.]

For Fiscal Year 2023, according to the 2023 CRS report, "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel," the United States gave Israel at least $3.3 billion in direct bilateral military aid – also referred to as Foreign Military Financing or FMF. (Note: Israel earns interest on this money until it is spent.) Congress also authorized $500 million for "joint" U.S.-Israel missile defense programs (designed to protect Israeli territory from potential outside threats), and $98.58 million in funding for other cooperative defense and nondefense programs, bringing total military aid to Israel to at least $3.9 billion per year.

Put another way, American taxpayers gave Israel more than $10.7 million per day in 2023.

For Fiscal Year 2022, the US gave Israel $3.3 billion in direct bilateral military aid. Congress also authorized $1.5 billion for "joint" U.S.-Israel missile defense programs, bringing total military aid to Israel to $4.8 billion for the year.

Previous charts compared military aid to the two populations, and explained the overall situation on this source page. Since we found some people were confused by the chart, we have now changed it to include humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and explained it in this source page.

Last updated: 8/19/2026