#joe-biden

On March 21, 2026, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that “all houses and villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed, in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza.” That model, the systematic demolition of thousands of homes, including after the end of active hostilities and without discernible military justification, is being carried out using the D9 Armoured Bulldozer, manufactured by Caterpillar Inc. Within the Occupied Palestinian territories, the Palestinian population lives under military law, and the Israeli military utilizes Regulation 119, Defense (Emergency) Regulations (1945) which allows military commanders to order the demolition of any home or structure utilized by a convicted or suspected terrorist.

In 2002, B’tselem documented IDF D9s destroying 60 homes in the Rafah refugee camp, displacing over 600 Palestinians five years before Hamas took power.

Since October 2024, IDF D9 bulldozers, in controlled demolition, demolished 8,218 homes in Gaza, many after ceasefires and without military rationale.

A 2026 UN report documented the destruction as systematic, occurring in neighborhoods cleared of combatants and posing no ongoing military threat.

A New York Times report detailed 50 social media accounts of Israeli soldiers demolishing houses, schools and other civilian buildings.

September 2024: West Bank Raid

The IDF deployed D9s as collective punishment following the October 7th, 2023 attacks. In the West Bank IDF raids caused an estimated $135 million in damages: 20km of water, sewage, electricity, and communication networks were destroyed; 70% of the road network was demolished along with 40 residential buildings and 10 businesses being damaged.

Following the 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon, IDF D9s demolished entire villages and leveled cemeteries, obliterating headstones and burial markers.

The IDF demolished or heavily damaged at least 850 structures across refugee camps of Nur Shams, Jenin, and Tulkarem continuing acts of collective punishment. Resulting in the displacement of some 40,000 people in the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since the Israeli occupation began in 1967.

In November, it was reported that the Biden administration was holding up the sale of the D9 bulldozers due to the IDF’s use of them to raze homes in Gaza. The IDF has said the homes were used by Hamas and accuses the terror group of using civilians as human shields.

US President Donald Trump, upon entering office, walked back on several measures by the previous administration meant to curb arms sales to Israel.

Since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023, the Defense Ministry says, 870 transport planes and 144 ships have delivered more than 100,000 tons of armaments and military equipment to Israel, mostly from the US.

Day one actions of his presidency included restoring U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and halting funding for the Mexico–United States border wall.[3] On his second day, he issued a series of executive orders to reduce the impact of COVID-19, including invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, and set an early goal of achieving one hundred million COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States in his first 100 days.[4] The first major legislation signed into law by Biden was the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that temporarily established expanded unemployment insurance and sent $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans in response to continued economic pressure from COVID-19.[5] He signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a ten-year plan brokered by Biden alongside Democrats and Republicans in Congress to invest in American roads, bridges, public transit, ports and broadband access.[6]

Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court—the first Black woman to serve on the court. In response to the debt-ceiling crisis of 2023, he negotiated and signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which restrains federal spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, implements minor changes to SNAP and TANF, includes energy permitting reform, claws back some IRS funding and unspent money for COVID-19, and suspended the debt ceiling to January 1, 2025.

The foreign policy goal of the Biden administration was to restore the U.S. to a "position of trusted leadership" among global democracies in order to address the challenges posed by Russia and China. Biden signed AUKUS, an international security alliance together with Australia and the United Kingdom. He supported the expansion of NATO with the additions of Finland and Sweden. Biden approved a raid which led to the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the leader of the Islamic State, and approved a drone strike which killed Ayman Al Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, declaring an end to nation-building efforts and shifting U.S. foreign policy toward strategic competition with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.

He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and providing Ukraine with over $100 billion in combined military, economic, and humanitarian aid.[19][20] During the Gaza war, Biden condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism, and announced American military support for Israel; he also sent humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and brokered a four-day temporary pause and hostage exchange in 2023 followed by a three-phase ceasefire in January 2025.