The Defense Department’s inspector general has launched an audit of how Israel maintains, stores and uses the firepower and sensitive military hardware it has received from the United States since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks when Hamas launched a rampage into southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

The IG audit, announced this week, is part of “Golden Sentry,” the Pentagon’s Enhanced End Use Monitoring (EEUM) of defense assets such as missiles, drones and night vision devices that have been provided to Israel. Its purpose is to hold foreign military sales partners accountable for the proper use and physical security of U.S.-provided defense material, officials said.

“The [Pentagon Inspector General’s Office] has previously audited EEUM in Ukraine and Iraq, and found significant challenges with the Defense Department’s oversight of EEUM in contingency environments,” Pentagon officials said in a statement. “The audit is one of several oversight projects the [the office] is conducting related to U.S. assistance to Israel.”

According to Brown University’s Cost of War project, the U.S. has provided Israel with almost $18 billion in security assistance since it launched combat operations in the Gaza Strip in response to the Oct. 7 attacks.

The audit was announced amid growing international criticism of the Israeli Defense Forces’ conduct in the war. But a spokesperson for the Pentagon’s inspector general told Bloomberg the office is not reviewing allegations that U.S.-supplied weapons are being used against civilian targets.

The Hamas-controlled health department in Gaza claims about 42,000 have been killed in the Palestinian enclave since the start of the war. The Biden administration in May paused the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in frustration over the blocking of humanitarian aid into the densely populated Palestinian enclave.