WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it plans to move forward on a new $1 billion sale of arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides say.

It’s the first arms shipment to Israel to be pushed ahead since the administration put another arms transfer, consisting of 3,500 bombs of up to 2,000 pounds each, on hold this month. The Biden administration, citing concern for civilian casualties in Gaza, has said it paused that bomb transfer to keep Israel from using those particular munitions in its offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The new package disclosed Tuesday includes about $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, the congressional aides said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an arms transfer that has not yet been made public.

Rep. Greg Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday that the package had been in the works for some time and does not use money from the national security spending package signed into law by President Joe Biden last month, which included roughly $26 billion in aid to Israel and humanitarian relief for people in Gaza.

Meeks said if allowed to go forward, the arms would be transferred in the next two to three years.

The administration’s notice to lawmakers this week isn’t the final, formal notification before a sale, one of the congressional aides said. The deal would be an entirely new sale, the aide said. That means any weapons included could take years to be delivered.

Once a transfer is informally announced to Congress, the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can block it by placing a hold on the package, and the State Department generally will not proceed if that occurs.

The Biden administration has come under criticism from both ends of the political spectrum over its military support for Israel’s now 7-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza. Some of Biden’s fellow Democrats have pushed him to limit transfers of offensive weapons to Israel to pressure the U.S. ally to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.

Republican lawmakers have seized on the administration’s pause on the bomb transfer, saying any lessening of U.S. support for Israel weakens that country as it fights Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. In the House, they are planning to advance a bill this week to mandate the delivery of offensive weaponry for Israel.