On Sunday, Israeli media reported the freezing of some bulldozer shipments from the United States to Israel. The famous English-language website Ynet News, for example, opted for the sensational title: “The shipment of the D9 bulldozer is blocked by the American embargo, leaving Israeli soldiers exposed. » Certainly, there is nothing more tragic than “exposed” soldiers belonging to a genocidal army.

According to the article, 134 bulldozers “ordered and paid for” by the Israeli army are currently “awaiting export approval from the US State Department”, but their shipment has been blocked by internal state opposition. -United and by an apparent decision by President Joe Biden’s administration to freeze. deliveries “for several months”. The D9 model is manufactured by the American company Caterpillar Inc.

Some observers have took this movement to mean for Bidenites to express their displeasure with the Israeli war crime of ethnic cleansing. But if you’re against ethnic cleansing, why not go all the way and be against genocide as well?

Indeed, a shortage of new bulldozers will have no impact on Israel’s ability to continue its genocide in Gaza, where officially more than 43,000 Palestinians have been massacred over the past 13 months, but the actual death toll is undoubtedly much higher.

Ynet noted that the machines are used “primarily to flatten structures in the Gaza Strip” but are “also needed” in southern Lebanon, where Israel’s latest terrorist operations have also killed thousands of people. The IDF’s existing arsenal of D9 bulldozers would need maintenance, hence the replacement order – whose moratorium on delivery “will likely delay another major (Israeli Army) operation.” which remains incomplete: the establishment of a kilometer-wide buffer zone between the Gaza Strip (and Israel) involving the leveling of hundreds of Palestinian buildings and agricultural land.

It’s not just the troubling issue of “exposed” soldiers; there is also the unfortunate interruption of Israel’s scorched earth plan.

In addition to “leveling” civilian infrastructure and destroying agriculture, bulldozers have served other useful purposes in Gaza. There was this period in September, for example, when the Palestinian Center for Human Rights documented the shooting by Israeli soldiers of Majed Fida Abu Zina, 17, a resident of the Far’a refugee camp in Gaza, who was “left bleeding for approximately an hour and a half”, after which the Israeli army ” brought him to the bulldozer and began desecrating the boy’s body, tearing his abdomen and exposing his internal organs before dragging him and throwing him on al Far’a Hill.

Incidentally, Israel’s bulldozing of human beings has not been limited to Palestinians. In 2003, 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a 36-ton Caterpillar bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, where she was protesting against the demolition of Palestinian homes by Israel. Call it caterpillar damage.

And Rafah, as it happens, was at the heart of the story the last time the Biden administration made noises about suspending shipments of lethal materials to Israel. In May, Biden announced that he would no longer provide offensive weapons to the Israeli army in the event of a general assault on the southern Gaza city, saying that “civilians have been killed in Gaza as a result of these bombs.”

Well, yes, that’s how genocide works. And suspending a few bomb shipments here and there ultimately does absolutely nothing to stop the massacres. Ditto for refusing the Israelis to replace their D9 bulldozers.

These extremely isolated cases of moratoriums on arms transfers have all the less impact on Israeli military behavior as they are accompanied by a continuous flow of billions and billions of dollars in American military aid to Israel. and other free-flowing weapons.

Recall that in April, just weeks before Biden issued his Rafah warning, the US Congress approved as much as $26 billion in additional war aid to Israel – which was authorized on top of all the billions of dollars that Israel already receives each year. from his loyal American partner in crime.

And as Al Jazeera reported in August, the Biden administration had just “approved sending $20 billion worth of weapons to Israel, even as the U.S. publicly calls for restraint in the war against Gaza.

Of course, the mixed messages are being fully exploited by Israel’s psychopathic government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who invokes every perceived affront by the fundamentally obsequious United States as supposed proof that even Israel’s best friends are now, in one way or another, anti-Israel.

According to the Ynet report, the temporary freeze on shipments of D9 bulldozers is just another case of Israel receiving “the cold shoulder…from Washington” – a situation that “could pose a risk to (Israeli) soldiers.” in the Gaza Strip. and Lebanon.

And yet, this “cold shoulder” has not and will not prevent Israel from literally and metaphorically bulldozing Gaza while raining US-made apocalyptic destruction from the sky.

Forget the Israeli soldiers “exposed” because of the announced US freeze on bulldozer shipments. The people of Gaza are at full risk of genocide – and international opposition to this most grim reality is being bulldozed as we speak.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.