The Israel Defense Forces will hold a large-scale exercise over the Mediterranean in the spring with dozens of aircraft simulating a strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the military confirmed Thursday according to a report from The Times of Israel.
The plan comes as Israeli officials have stepped up their rhetoric against the Islamic Republic, including threatening to take unilateral action against Tehran. According to a Wednesday report by the Kan public broadcaster,
which was confirmed by the IDF the following morning, the drill will be one of the largest ever held by the Israeli Air Force and will include dozens of aircraft, including the F-15, F-35, and F-16 fighters, Gulfstream G550 spy planes, and refueling jets.
The planes will conduct the exercise far out over the Mediterranean Sea to simulate the distance — over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) — that the aircraft would need to travel in a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Times of Israel stated that Zeev Elkin, Israel’s housing and construction minister, said the aim of the exercises is to ‘prepare for every eventuality before adding:
‘We will not allow Iran to go nuclear’. Israel and Iran have been at loggerheads for decades over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, with the latter insisting the technology will be use for peaceful purposes while the former says it will be used for a weapon aimed at them.
In 2015, then-President Obama struck a deal with Tehran aimed at allowing the regime to create low-enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors while committing it to inspections and other checks to prevent the mullahs from creating a bomb.
Israel vociferously opposed the deal, and in 2018 succeeded in persuading President Trump to walk away from it by re-imposing sanctions and taking a much harder stance with Iran’s rulers. Since then, Iran has breached various terms of the deal including enriching uranium to 60 percent – just shy of the 90 percent needed to build a bomb – and doubling its stockpile of highly enriched material.
