In preparation for another round of fighting with Iran, which may well prove inevitable, Israel has steadily enhanced its already advanced long-range strike capabilities while rationing and ramping up production of its world-class, strategic anti-ballistic missile defenses.
On May 27, Israel received its first new Boeing KC-46 aerial tanker, called “Gideon” in Israeli Air Force service, from the United States. It expects to receive at least six in the coming years. These new aircraft will replace Israel’s aging fleet of Boeing 707 “Re’em” tankers and, in the words of IAF chief Maj. Gen. Omer Tischler, provide “more fuel, more payload, further reach.”
Israeli media reports on the aircraft’s arrival invariably highlighted that this new fleet of tankers will give the IAF greater leeway to strike its distant adversaries, reducing its reliance on U.S. support.
“This delivery could be a game-changer in providing Israel with much greater independence, if it decided to strike the Islamic regime in Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, or any other potential distant adversaries in the future, even if some later U.S. administration were to oppose such a strike,” noted a Jerusalem Post article.
When Israel launched its first large-scale air campaign against Iran in June 2025, Operation Rising Lion, it relied on its 707 fleet to refuel its fighter jets as they flew round-the-clock long-range strikes across Iran’s expansive landmass. While the United States did join in at the end of that war by launching Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran’s main nuclear sites, it officially denied helping refuel Israeli jets with its tankers.
Conducting such a sustained long-range air campaign carried many risks. U.S. Air Force F-16s escorting the strategic Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bombers that struck Iran’s Fordow and Natanz facilities in Midnight Hammer left Iranian airspace flying on fumes. Israeli pilots no doubt faced similar risks, which is one reason Israel established two covert forward-operating bases inside Iraq in case it needed to rescue any downed pilots, as the U.S. needed to do during this year’s Operation Epic Fury.
When Israel launched Operation Roaring Lion jointly with the U.S. Epic Fury campaign on February 28, it could count on U.S. tanker support, increasing its ability to strike targets deep inside Iranian airspace.
“Here, from the runways of Nevatim Airbase, refueling aircraft took off around two months ago and carried the entire air force to Iran on their wings,” IAF chief Tischler said at the May 27 KC-46 inauguration ceremony.
Israel clearly seeks to have the capability of mounting such a campaign independently, cognizant that Epic Fury-Roaring Lion may ultimately represent the peak of joint U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran.
Less than two weeks before the KC-46’s arrival, Israel’s Ministry of Defense signed a contract to equip Israel’s fifth-generation F-35I ‘Adir’ stealth strike fighter jets with external fuel tanks to extend their range. Unique among F-35 operators, Israel is allowed to modify its exclusive Adir variant with domestic subsystems and weapons. The external tanks will the first time such tanks have been fitted on the fifth-generation jet and could therefore mean IAF F-35s will be able to fly further than their U.S. counterparts without midair refueling. However, it’s unclear whether these tanks could undermine the F-35’s crucial stealth. There were already indications that Israel sought to modify its F-35s to extend their range as far back as 2021.
KC-46 tankers coupled with extended-range F-35s could potentially enable Israel to wage a more sustained, independent air campaign than Rising Lion in the coming years.
The KC-46 arrival and F-35 contract coincided with a reported U.S. deployment of fifth-generation Lockheed F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and refueling aircraft in Israel. The U.S. deployed F-22s in Israel in the lead-up to Epic Fury, leading some to conclude that Israel was living up to its decades-old reputation as an unsinkable American aircraft carrier. In late May, Reuters reported that Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion International, may face heavy flight cancellations because of the heavy presence of American tanker aircraft there. Nevertheless, these American assets could benefit Israel if hostilities with Iran resume over the summer.
In tandem with these efforts to incrementally enhance its long-range strike capabilities, Israel has also moved to bolster its strategic missile defenses. Shortly after the fragile April 8 ceasefire halted hostilities in the latest war, a Defense Ministry plan to ramp up the production of Israel’s Arrow missiles was approved. The Arrow 3 is an exoatmospheric anti-ballistic missile that covers the uppermost layer of Israel’s multilayered air defense. The sophisticated interceptors cost an estimated $2-3 million each.
After the 12-day war, it emerged that the U.S. had fired 150 interceptors from its equivalent to the Arrow, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, to reinforce Israel’s defense. Costing an estimated $12-15 million per interceptor, the number represented an enormous drain on U.S. stockpiles at a time when contractor Lockheed Martin was producing only around 20 interceptors per year.
The latest U.S.-Israel campaign put an even greater strain on U.S. interceptor stockpiles. A post-war report by The Washington Post revealed that the U.S. fired twice the number of missile interceptors to protect Israel from incoming Iranian ballistic missiles than Israel’s missile defenses did. Throughout that most recent war, the U.S. fired approximately 200 THAAD interceptors, approximately half its entire arsenal. On top of that, the U.S. also expended more than 100 sophisticated SM-3 and SM-6 naval interceptors in Israel’s defense. SM-3s can cost between $9.66 million and $27.9 million, depending on the specific variant, while SM-6s cost around $9.5 million. At the same time during this period, Israel fired fewer than 100 Arrow interceptors overall and approximately 90 of its David’s Sling interceptors. The latter system fires Stunner missiles, which are substantially cheaper than their American equivalent, the Patriot PAC-3.
A subsequent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that it will take the U.S. around two years to replenish those SM-3 and SM-6s and at least three years to restore the THAADs to pre-war levels. And all that’s presuming hostilities with Iran don’t resume anytime soon and the U.S. once again finds itself expending its high-end interceptor missiles at unsustainable rates. The Washington Post report cited a U.S. official warning that the U.S. potentially might find itself firing even more interceptors in Israel’s defense if fighting resumes shortly, since some Israeli missile defense systems are presently undergoing maintenance.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently outlined how the Pentagon leaked documents on American interceptor usage to both expose the extent to which the U.S. defended Israel throughout the war and warn of the costs of renewed confrontation for Washington.
“Both reports, published in media outlets closely connected to allies and sources of U.S. President Donald Trump, centered on a similar argument,” read the Haaretz report. “The United States expended enormous military resources defending Israel during the war, and its defense industry is struggling to replenish critical munitions quickly enough for another prolonged conflict.”
“Still, the renewed public discussion surrounding interceptor shortages and military readiness is itself the product of calculated leaks that together amount to a clear message from inside the Pentagon: There is no easy way to resume fighting Iran without risking American troops, strategic interests and critical military resources after the United States spent much of the war defending Israel.”
At the same time, Israel likely calculates it needs to use its Arrows sparingly while producing as many new ones as possible in the event that it once again fights Iran alone or with significantly less American support. Already, its military’s Home Front Command assesses that Iran’s ballistic missiles could pose an even greater threat to Israel in the next war than all of the preceding ones. Tehran undoubtedly derived lessons from all of its direct bombardments targeting Israel since the initial April 13, 2024 attack. Furthermore, Israel fears that a new U.S.-Iran deal may not address Iran’s ballistic missile program, which Tehran consistently refuses to even negotiate, just like the July 2015 nuclear deal, leaving Israel facing a much more dangerous missile threat down the road.
There are already indications that the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign only inflicted temporary setbacks on the enormous Iranian missile arsenal. On May 31, CNN reported that satellite images have revealed that Iran already reopened at least 50 out of 69 entrances to its underground missile cities since the ceasefire using basic bulldozers and dump trucks.
After the 12-day war, Israel declared it would take steps to enforce its air superiority over Iran and actively thwart any additional Iranian missile and nuclear advancements. Following that war and the most recent U.S.-Israeli campaign, analysts have repeatedly argued that Israel’s policy of periodically “mowing” or “cutting the grass,” the controversial euphemistic metaphor for those intermittent pre-October 2023 military campaigns against Hamas in the tiny neighboring Gaza Strip, cannot be feasibly replicated on a much vaster scale against Iran.
Whatever happens next, it’s already clear that Israel has concluded that it cannot solely depend on the U.S. providing such extensive defense and other direct support in another war with Iran. Consequently, it is using the present respite to equip itself with the most advanced long-range offensive and sophisticated defensive capabilities it can either build or buy.
