Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video statement Tuesday urging the U.S. to stop withholding weapons and ammunition from Israel.

In May, the Biden administration confirmed that it was withholding heavy precision bombs from Israel in protest against Israel’s decision to enter the southern Gaza town of Rafah to fight the last remaining Hamas battalions.

As a result, Israel was forced to send troops into potentially booby-trapped buildings rather than bombing them.

The White House said it was concerned about Palestinian civilian casualties, but a million civilians left Rafah.

Given the success of the Israeli operation — which has reportedly destroyed half of the Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah — and the departure of so many civilians to safety, it was thought that Biden had relented on the arms issue.

On Monday, there were unconfirmed reports that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had promised Netanyahu last week that weapons shipments would fully resume. But Netanyahu’s speech suggests otherwise — that the arms shipments are still being withheld. Hence Netanyahu is appealing to the White House publicly and directly.

In a video published to X / Twitter on Monday, Netanyahu said:

When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciated the support the U.S. has given Israel from the beginning of the war.

But I also said something else. I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.

Israel, America’s closest ally, fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies.

Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks. I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case.

During World War II, Churchill told the United States, ‘Give us the tools, we’ll do [sic] the job.’ And I say, give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.

(Churchill actually used the word “finish” as well.)

The need for heavy precision bombs, as well as artillery, has become particularly acute as Israel turns its focus to the growing threat from Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which has been firing projectiles at Israel from southern Lebanon.

The attacks have made Israel’s northern border region uninhabitable. Israel is almost certain to strike back, but will need weapons that can reach an enemy that uses tunnels thought to be vast more sophisticated than Hamas’s in Gaza.

Netanyahu is set to deliver a speech to a special joint session of Congress on July 24. He will become the first foreign leader to have done so four times. Some Democrats are already planning to disrupt, boycott, and protest the event.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.