US envoy Amos Hochstein told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting on Tuesday in Israel that his public comments this week that the US is “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel” were “unproductive” and “more importantly, completely untrue,” a senior US official told CNN.

In that same meeting, US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew also reiterated to Netanyahu that his comments were not correct, walking through all of the arms the US has transferred to Israel in recent months, according to two senior US officials. A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Israel confirmed that Lew spoke with Netanyahu on Tuesday. The spokesperson reiterated that “with the exception of ongoing discussion regarding large diameter munitions, other items are either delivered or in the process of being delivered, or in the normal review process.”

Axios first reported on the exchange between Hochstein and Netanyahu.

The meeting reflected the administration’s mounting frustration with the Israeli leader’s comments. Another senior administration official told CNN that the public statement from the Israeli prime minister was “perplexing” and “wrong.”

This is not the first time Netanyahu has publicly lambasted the Biden administration in the course of the Israel-Hamas war, but this week’s public dispute comes as the stakes around the war in Gaza and a potential further conflict between Israel and Hezbollah remain incredibly high. Both the Israeli prime minister and the President Joe Biden are facing growing political pressure at home over their handling of the war.

Hochstein’s comments to Netanyahu weren’t the first time US officials have pushed back in private against public comments made by Netanyahu, but some US officials would like the Biden administration to go further, an administration official said.

That frustration appears to have led to the US postponing one meeting of the US-Israel Strategic Consultative Group (SDG) initially slated for Thursday, where Iran was one of the agenda items, according to a senior administration official. But that official and a White House official disputed that the meeting was moved in response to comments made by Netanyahu and stressed that it had never been firmed up. Meetings between US and Israeli officials this week,including on Wednesday, are set to continue, according to the first official, and the Thursday meeting in question is likely to be rescheduled – possibly for as early as next week

Still, a different senior US official insisted that the Thursday meeting was taken off the schedule to send a message to Netanyahu, similar to how the Israeli leader canceled a visit to the US in March by a delegation in protest at a US abstention on a key UN vote, the official said.

“We have been working to find a time to schedule the next SDG that accounts for the travel and availability of principals, but have not yet fully finalized the details so nothing has been cancelled,” a White House official told CNN. “In the meantime, meetings with Israeli officials are being held throughout the week at expert and senior levels on a range of topics. As we said in the briefing yesterday, we have no idea what the Prime Minister is talking about, but that’s not a reason for rescheduling a meeting.”

Netanyahu publicly claimed the Biden administration was “withholding weapons” in a video posted to X on Tuesday, claiming that Secretary of State Antony Blinken “assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks.”

The top US diplomat refused to discuss his conversation with Netanyahu last week, saying he was “not going to talk about what we said in diplomatic conversations.”

“I can just say, again, that we have a commitment to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against a whole variety of threats,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. He also confirmed that one shipment of heavy bombs remains on hold.

“We continue to move these different cases through our system on regular order,” Blinken said, noting that “it takes a long time to move these things, and a number of the things that are going to Israel won’t get there for years.”

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Netanyahu says he pressed Blinken on US withholding weapons to Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he pressed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the withholding of U.S. weapons when they met last week in Tel Aviv.

“It’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video released by the prime minister’s office.

In response, Blinken assured Netanyahu in a “candid conversation” that the administration was working “day and night” to cancel restrictions applied to the weapons transfers, according to the Israeli prime minister.

Just this week, lawmakers on the Senate and House Foreign Affairs committees approved the $18 billion transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel following a months-long hold after top Democrats signed off.

“We genuinely do not know what he is talking about,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Parine said in reference to Netanyahu’s statement at a press conference Tuesday.

The package will advance to the rest of Congress, where members could choose to block the transfer by adopting a joint resolution. However, Congress has never successfully blocked the transfer of a proposed arms sale from the White House through that process.

The package reportedly includes $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, according to The Associated Press.

During a D.C. press conference Tuesday, Blinken declined to confirm that he made assurances to Netanyahu but said the administration was still reviewing components of a shipment.

“We, as you know, are continuing to review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area, like Rafah. That remains under review,” Blinken said.

“There are no other holds or pauses in place,” Jean-Pierre reaffirmed. “Everything else is moving in due process.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Washington Post that he understood that the arms would not be delivered for years, with estimates reporting they would not be delivered to Israel for five years.

President Biden said in May that the administration would pause shipments of U.S. munitions to Israel if they launched a major offensive on the city of Rafah, which is densely populated with Gazan refugees who have fled the north.

Progress with the transfer comes amid the administration’s public opposition to Israel’s ongoing attack on the south of the Gaza Strip.

“Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster,” Netanyahu concluded.

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U.S. says it doesn't know what Netanyahu is talking about over weapons

The U.S. says it has no idea what the Israeli prime minister is talking about.

The Biden administration on Tuesday rejected Benjamin Netanyahu's accusation that Washington had been "withholding weapons and ammunitions" from its close ally over the "past few months." The Israeli leader implied that this was hampering his military's ongoing offensive in Gaza, now focused on the southern city of Rafah.

"We genuinely do not know what he is talking about. We just don't,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said as she maintained that only one shipment of heavy bombs had been paused since the war began, while billions of dollars of arms have continued to flow into Israel.

The White House denied reports it had canceled a high-level meeting with Israeli officials about Iran after having been enraged by Netanyahu's accusation. A White House official told NBC News the details of the meeting had not yet been finalized, "so nothing has been canceled."

U.S. officials said they did not want to “reward” Israel with the meeting, which they described as “not locked” in a final schedule and “postponed." The officials said it is still expected to happen, however.

The White House official said meetings with Israeli officials were being held throughout the week "on a range of topics."

"As we said in the briefing yesterday, we have no idea what the prime minister is talking about, but that’s not a reason for rescheduling a meeting," the official said.

Also Wednesday, the United Nations human rights office said the laws of war were most likely being "consistently violated" in the Israeli military's assault on the Palestinian enclave, citing the use of heavy bombs. The new assessment came as some focus was turning north to Israel's border with Lebanon, where Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah have intensified their exchanges of fire and rhetoric while the U.S. worked to avoid an all-out war.

Netanyahu issued his criticism in a video statement on X, saying he had discussed the issue of withheld weapons with Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his recent visit to Israel.

"I said I deeply appreciated the support the U.S. has given Israel from the beginning of the war," Netanyahu says in the video, speaking directly to the camera in English. "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."

Netanyahu didn't expand on exactly what weapons were being withheld, but he said Blinken had assured him the U.S. was working to "remove these bottlenecks."

In a news briefing Tuesday, Blinken said he would not discuss what was said during diplomatic conversations with Netanyahu. But he maintained that there had been "no change" in the White House's stance.

"Our posture is, again, to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself across these many threats," he said, as two top Democrats in Congress allowed the U.S. sale of $15 billion of F-15s to Israel to move ahead following a delay, according to The Associated Press.

Blinken noted there had been "one case," which NBC News reported in May, in which the U.S. halted a large shipment of offensive weapons over Israel's plans to launch a military offensive in Rafah.

President Joe Biden threatened that the U.S. would halt other shipments of certain arms if Israel moved forward with a full-scale assault in Rafah, but Washington has maintained that Israel has not crossed its red lines despite an intensifying campaign in the city in southern Gaza that was once considered a safe zone.

Blinken said the administration continued to review the "one shipment" that was withheld, but he said "everything else is moving as it normally would."

Jean-Pierre, in a news briefing, also said that the shipment of heavy bombs was the only one being delayed, and added that the U.S. was having “constructive discussions” with Israel about the transfer.

Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

The latest clash between the two allies came as Netanyahu faced growing domestic pressure over the fate of the war.

Israel has warned it may soon launch a fresh offensive along its northern border with Lebanon amid mounting hostilities with Hezbollah.

The U.S. and France have been working on a negotiated settlement and Netanyahu met with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein earlier this week.

But the Israeli military said Tuesday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” had been “approved and validated.”

Hezbollah, meanwhile, published video that it said was captured by surveillance aircraft of parts of Israel, including the city of Haifa's sea and air ports.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded in a post on X, saying that Israel was "getting very close to the moment of decision to change the rules of the game with Hezbollah and Lebanon."

"In a full-scale war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit," he said.

Hostilities continued Wednesday, with the IDF saying about 15 projectiles had been fired from Lebanon toward the area of Kiryat Shmona in Israel’s north, with no injuries reported.

It said Israeli fighter jets also struck a Hezbollah military structure in the area of Tyre, on the Mediterranean coast of southern Lebanon, as well as “terrorist infrastructure” in nearby Khiam.

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