A United States congressional committee on Tuesday approved a spending

bill that would double the funding for Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system, Fox News reported.

The defense spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee would provide $621.6 million for Israeli missile defense, including $351 million for the Iron Dome system.

The bill still has to be approved by the full Senate.

The allocation for Israel is only a small part of the full bill, which would provide the U.S. armed forces with $549.3 billion for the fiscal year beginning October 1.

The bill spares several of the weapons programs that the Pentagon had proposed scaling back or eliminating, including the A-10 Warthog close-air support program and the USS George Washington aircraft carrier.

Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the subcommittee, said the bill would also provide $25 million to fund a competition to develop a new domestic rocket engine. Reliance on a Russian-built version made no sense, Durbin said.