A U.S. Defense Department watchdog has found that Washington lost full accountability over large portions of sensitive American-supplied weapons in Israel during the first year of the Gaza war, as the intensity of the fighting overwhelmed standard oversight systems meant to track some of the Pentagon’s most advanced arms.

A report from the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General concluded that the Pentagon only partially complied with its own rules for monitoring high-risk weapons sent to Israel after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack triggered a prolonged, high-intensity conflict.

The audit examined Enhanced End-Use Monitoring (EEUM)—the strictest oversight regime applied to sensitive U.S. weapons, including advanced munitions, night-vision systems, and specialized platforms. While U.S. officials had largely met monitoring requirements before the war, the report found that once fighting escalated, the system began to break down.

From November 2024 onward, the Pentagon maintained tracking records for just 44% of EEUM-controlled platforms in Israel, down sharply from 69% before the war. Much of the equipment could not be inspected because it had already been deployed by the IDF, according to the report.

The watchdog cited a combination of factors behind the lapse: U.S. travel restrictions, a rapidly changing security environment, and staffing shortages at the Office of Defense Cooperation-Israel, the embassy unit responsible for tracking U.S. weapons. Together, those constraints made it impossible to conduct annual physical inspections and serial-number inventories required under Pentagon rules.

Although U.S. officials continued some monitoring—such as recording Israeli notifications of weapons used in combat—the Inspector General found that large sections of the tracking database contained outdated or incomplete information. Many items lacked updated records showing whether they were deployed, stored, or unavailable for inspection.

The report also faulted U.S. Central Command and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency for failing to detect the growing gaps or intervene to restore compliance.

“Without effective accountability, these EEUM defense articles could be acquired by adversaries in the region,” the report warned, saying such a scenario could expose sensitive U.S. weapons technology and undermine America’s military edge.

The Inspector General stressed that incomplete monitoring does not mean Israel misused U.S. weapons. Instead, it highlights the risks that emerge when documentation and inspections lag behind battlefield realities in a fast-moving war.

The findings come as U.S. military aid to Israel has surged. Between October 2023 and April 2024, Washington transferred more than four million munitions from U.S. stockpiles in Israel, and from 2023 to 2025 notified Congress of over $20 billion in additional arms sales.

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