Israel doubles down on air power with two-squadron fighter buy

The Israeli Ministerial Committee on Procurement has approved the simultaneous acquisition of two new fighter squadrons — a fourth F-35 squadron from Lockheed Martin and a second F-15IA squadron from Boeing — in deals valued at tens of billions of shekels, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced Sunday.

The approval marks the opening move in a decade-long IDF force buildup plan that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz signed off on under a dedicated 350-billion-NIS budget. It is, by any measure, one of the most ambitious Israeli military aviation expansions in recent memory — two major procurement packages moving simultaneously, not sequentially.

Both deals include full fleet integration into the Israeli Air Force, along with comprehensive sustainment packages covering spare parts and logistics support, according to the Ministry of Defense statement. The contracts are not just about buying jets. They are about absorbing two entirely new squadrons into an already combat-tested force and keeping them operational over the long haul.

Defense Minister Katz and IMOD Director General Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram brought the procurement before the Committee as part of the Ministry’s broader strategy to strengthen readiness ahead of what Israeli officials are describing as a demanding decade for Israeli security. With the Committee’s approval secured, Baram directed the IMOD Mission to the United States to begin finalizing the agreements with American government and military counterparts in the coming period.

The F-35I — Israel’s domestically modified variant of Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation stealth fighter, known as the Adir — has been at the core of Israeli air doctrine since its introduction. Israel was the first country outside the United States to fly the F-35 in combat, using it in strike operations across the region. A fourth squadron would significantly expand the IAF’s fifth-generation capacity at a moment when the threat environment across the Middle East has grown sharply more complex.

The F-15IA, Boeing’s latest iteration of the Eagle family tailored for Israeli requirements, represents the other half of this expansion. Where the F-35 brings stealth and sensor fusion, the F-15IA is built for raw payload capacity and range — a high-low pairing that has defined Israeli air power planning for decades. A second IA squadron gives Israel depth in long-range strike options at a time when the distances involved in potential contingencies are not shrinking.