The United States Department of War announced this week the awarding to Boeing of a contract worth 8.6 billion dollars for the so-called F-15 Israel Program, intended to reinforce the combat fleet of the Israeli Air Force.
The announcement came shortly after a meeting in Florida between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, underscoring the close military cooperation between the two countries.
According to the Pentagon, the contract covers the design, integration, testing, production, and delivery of 25 new F-15IA fighters, the Israeli variant of the advanced F-15EX, with an option to manufacture another 25 additional aircraft.
The program is part of Foreign Military Sales, a mechanism through which the United States supplies weapons to strategic allies. The work will be carried out mainly in St. Louis and is expected to be completed by December 31, 2035.
The F-15IA represents the most modern evolution of a platform that Israel has used for decades and that remains a pillar of its air power. This version incorporates advanced avionics, greater payload capacity, and improvements in range and survivability. The Israeli armed forces have employed their F-15s intensively in recent operations against targets linked to Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The new contract expands an agreement signed last November, when Israel concluded a 5.2 billion dollar deal for the initial acquisition of 25 F-15IAs, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2031 in batches of between four and six aircraft per year. With this week's announcement, the total number of F-15IAs destined for Israel rises to 50 units, which will be added to the 66 F-15 variants that already make up its air fleet.
The United States has historically been Israel's main arms supplier and considers this type of agreement essential to preserving the country's so-called qualitative military edge in the Middle East.
