Israel is about to field roughly 100 F-35 stealth fighters, a fleet rivaled by only a handful of nations on Earth. In late May 2026, the country’s Ministerial Procurement Committee approved the purchase of a fourth F-35 squadron and a second squadron of F-15IA heavy fighters, adding an estimated 50 combat aircraft to an air force already considered the most capable in the Middle East. The twin deals mark one of the most significant Israeli airpower expansions in decades and arrive as the military contends with threats stretching from Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs to Hezbollah’s deep arsenal in Lebanon.
What Israel just bought
The approvals trace directly to Israel’s Ministry of Defense, which confirmed both acquisitions in an official announcement. Israeli fighter squadrons have historically been built around approximately 25 aircraft, a figure consistent with every prior F-35 procurement round. If the fourth squadron follows that pattern, Israel’s total F-35 orders will reach roughly 100 airframes.
The approval extends a documented procurement chain. The Ministry of Defense previously signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance with the U.S. government covering 25 F-35s for a third squadron, bringing contracted totals to 75. A fourth squadron of comparable size would push Israel past Japan’s current 42 delivered F-35s and closer to the order books of the United Kingdom (138 planned) and Japan (147 planned), though both of those programs are spread across longer timelines.
The F-15IA component carries its own weight. A second squadron of the Boeing-built heavy fighter doubles the planned inventory of a platform Israel has designated as a long-range strike workhorse. The F-15IA shares its airframe lineage with the U.S. Air Force’s F-15EX Eagle II, though the Israeli variant incorporates country-specific systems. It can carry a heavier and more diverse weapons payload than the F-35, including outsized munitions that do not fit inside the stealth jet’s internal bays. Two squadrons give the Israeli Air Force substantially more capacity for deep-strike missions demanding large ordnance loads or extended range.
Why the mix matters
Operating both types in parallel is a deliberate design choice, not redundancy. The F-35I Adir, as Israel designates its variant, provides low-observable penetration, advanced sensor fusion, and the ability to operate inside contested airspace where radar-guided defenses would threaten conventional fighters. The F-15IA supplies raw carrying capacity: it can loft more bombs, heavier standoff weapons, and a wider variety of precision munitions on a single sortie. Pairing the two lets Israeli planners tailor strike packages depending on threat density, distance to target, and the size of the weapons required.
That flexibility has direct relevance to the threats Israel faces. Iranian air defenses, built around Russian-supplied S-300 systems and domestically produced radars, demand stealth penetration capabilities. But neutralizing hardened underground facilities, whether nuclear sites or missile storage bunkers, may require munitions too large for the F-35’s internal bays. The F-15IA fills that gap. Israel’s decades of operational experience with earlier F-15 variants, including the F-15I Ra’am that has served as the backbone of its long-range strike fleet since the late 1990s, means the new jets slot into a mature support ecosystem of trained crews, spare parts pipelines, and institutional knowledge.
Who pays for it
Neither the committee approval nor the earlier LOA specifies the total cost of the new squadrons. But publicly available benchmarks offer a rough frame. Recent F-35A production lots have come in at approximately $80 million per aircraft, according to Pentagon budget documents. The F-15EX, the closest U.S. analog to the F-15IA, has been priced at roughly $90 million to $100 million per unit in U.S. Air Force contracts. At those rates, 50 aircraft could represent a combined price tag in the range of $4 billion to $5 billion before Israeli-specific modifications, training, spare parts, and infrastructure are factored in.
Much of Israel’s military procurement is funded through U.S. Foreign Military Financing under a 10-year, $38 billion memorandum of understanding signed in 2016 that provides $3.8 billion annually through 2028. How the new squadrons will be split between American aid and Israel’s own defense budget has not been disclosed. That question carries political weight in both Washington and Jerusalem, particularly as the MOU’s expiration approaches and discussions about its successor begin to take shape.
What remains unknown
Several significant details are missing from the official announcements. Delivery timelines have not been published. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 production line has faced delays tied to the Technology Refresh 3 hardware and software upgrade, and Boeing’s F-15EX/F-15IA line operates under its own schedule constraints. For a military actively conducting operations, the gap between contract signing and operational fielding carries real tactical weight, affecting how planners forecast force availability through the early 2030s.
Basing decisions are also undisclosed. Israel’s existing F-35 squadrons operate from Nevatim Air Base in the Negev desert, but whether the fourth squadron will join them or stand up at a different installation has not been announced. The same ambiguity applies to the second F-15IA squadron. New squadron activations typically require hardened shelters, expanded maintenance facilities, fuel storage, and munitions bunkers, none of which have been detailed publicly.
The specific avionics modifications and weapons integration packages for the new aircraft remain under wraps as well. Israel has a long history of customizing U.S.-origin fighters with indigenous electronic warfare suites, secure communications, and locally developed precision weapons. Whether the fourth F-35 batch or the second F-15IA squadron will carry new Israeli modifications beyond those already fielded is an open question with real operational implications.
Finally, expanding by roughly 50 fighters implies a significant demand for additional pilots, ground crews, and technical specialists. The ministry has not outlined how quickly it plans to grow the human capital required to operate and sustain the enlarged fleet, or whether it will lean on extended training exchanges with U.S. units during the buildup.
A fleet plan, not a reaction
One pattern is visible across the procurement sequence: Israel has moved steadily from an initial F-35 order through a second and third squadron, each documented by a formal U.S. government agreement, and now to a fourth. Each step has followed the same roughly 25-aircraft increment. That consistency points to a long-term fleet plan rather than an ad hoc response to any single crisis. The F-15IA track, now expanding from one to two squadrons, follows a similar deliberate buildup.
What can be said with confidence is limited but substantial. Israel has committed to a fourth F-35 squadron and a second F-15IA squadron, likely totaling around 50 additional combat aircraft, backed by formal government processes and U.S.-Israeli agreements. The new fighters will deepen a force structure built around pairing stealth with heavy payload capacity. Cost, delivery schedules, base assignments, and the extent of Israeli-specific modifications remain opaque, and filling those gaps will require further official disclosures rather than speculation. But the direction is unmistakable: Israel is building one of the most formidable fighter fleets on the planet, and it is doing so with a consistency that suggests the planning started long before the current conflicts made the need obvious.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
