In the dead of night on September 12, 1990, the wheels of an El Al Boeing 747 hit the airport runway in Israel with history in the hold: Two Apache attack helicopters, folded up and dismantled, ready for assembly. By the following morning, they were ready for their maiden flight.
It's been 34 years. Apache helicopters have taken part in all wars and operations ever since but eventually became worn out. Although the Apaches were fixed up and upgraded over the years, the more advanced Saraf was introduced and the Apache’s days seemed numbered.
When the Cobra squadron bases closed down, the IDF was left with only two active combat helicopter squadrons—the 190th and 113th Apache squadrons. Last year, the IAF was preparing to close them too. The army preferred long-range stealth bombers, like the F-13 that can get as far as Iran, and continue bolstering the attack UAV array. A “flying tank” like the Apache sounds a bit outdated, more suitable for the wars of yesteryear. Then came October 7.
That morning, there were four Apache helicopters on standby at the Ramat David Air Base. They took off to the Gaza border region at around 7:00 a.m. Half an hour later, more and more helicopters were sent off. The Apaches were called from one place to the next. “Every five or six minutes, I was getting another call-out,” says 113th squadron commander, Lt. Col. A.
They participated in the battles at kibbutzim, the defense of bases that had been attacked, and in efforts to repel the waves of looters and terrorists from Gaza. At some battle sites, their roles were decisive. These critical hours proved that there really is no substitute for these “flying tanks” and the pilots who can see what’s happening to the infantry and armored corps on the ground, and communicate with them directly. Nukhba terrorists’ videos show they were afraid of almost nothing. The noise of the combat helicopters, however, permeated them with fear.
Apaches have been in the skies almost continuously since then. The use of attack helicopters, including in the ground operation in Lebanon, has been so intensive that the IAF has taken the extraordinary measure of returning even retired Apaches for their sixth decade of active duty. Closing down squadrons? Outdated helicopters? If this war has proven anything, it’s that we need more Apache helicopters.
But this is where the problems start. The Defense Ministry asked the Americans to urgently purchase more Apaches, even used ones. They just need to get here. The Americans agreed, but told Israel to wait in line at Boeing which manufactures them. It’ll be a few years.
The IDF looked into whether, nonetheless, anything might be done to speed things up and free up a few Apache “slots” (production line orders dedicated to specific countries). In other words, arrange it so that some other country waits a little and, in its place, considering its urgency, the IDF receives whatever that country ordered.
It turned out that Boeing had 300 Apache helicopters in various stages of production earmarked for the U.S. Army. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown, however, turned down the IDF’s request to transfer the helicopters. Poland, for example, that had put in its order before October 7, would be receiving 90 new Apaches. The IDF, on the other hand, wouldn’t be getting such helicopters anytime soon.
This chase for Apaches is just one of many examples. A year and a month into this intensive war, Israel needs almost everything—shells, tanks, F-15 one-ton bombs. To this end, a transglobal race has kicked off in efforts to procure as many armaments as possible, as quickly as possible, for as little money as possible.
It’s just that all of this is very complicated indeed. Some countries have imposed arms embargos on Israel, and some manufacturers are demanding exorbitant prices. And there’s always the stiff competition with other world conflicts, chiefly the war in Ukraine.
Take, for example, the IDF’s desperate need for tanks and artillery shells: When the ground operation kicked off, the guys in the tanks and the Artillery Corps fired almost with abandon. If a target looked suspicious, they’d shoot.
But very quickly, around December, the ground forces started keeping an eye on their arsenals, also reserved for a full ground operation in Lebanon. Israel then asked the U.S. for American shells. They agreed and the shipment showed up within weeks.
At the same time, to build up an arsenal, the defense establishment also asked a Balkan state to immediately purchase thousands of shells. “The price they quoted us was high. When we got back to them, hoping to negotiate a better price, they upped the price by 50% to the vicinity of $4,500 for an individual shell, and $6,000 for a cannon shell. These are very high prices” says a senior ranking defense establishment official familiar with these efforts. “They also demanded a downpayment. We came back home to think about it and assess the option. We then got a call from them, telling us we’d missed our chance and that Ukraine had paid and bought the lot before us.”
"We go to countries you wouldn’t believe an Israeli has ever set foot in,” says a defense establishment official. “Countries with whom we have no diplomatic relations, including Muslim states on all continents. You’d never believe who’s agreed to sell to us, but with one key condition.”
So, from the start of last year through to right now, IDF officers and Defense Ministry officials have been galivanting around the world on procurement trips. According to various reports, some of these countries, such as Serbia, which has become Israel’s main arms supplier over the past year, have good relations with Russia, and would, it seems, rather supply to Israel than to Ukraine.
Others, like India, which has relations with Iran and hundreds of millions of Muslims in its country, sell arms to Israel despite internal difficulties. According to foreign reports, India has become Israel’s main provider of explosive materials, selling thousands of tons to the IDF Engineering Corps. Oh, and these reports were published in Spain, which doesn’t shy away from harming Israel in any way it can.
This is yet one more example illustrating how this race is driven by two things: Politics and money, and not necessarily in that order. “We go to countries you wouldn’t believe an Israeli has ever set foot in,” says a defense establishment official. “Countries with whom we have no diplomatic relations, including Muslim states on all continents. You’d never believe who’s agreed to sell to us, but with one key condition.”
What condition is that?
“That we don’t reveal their identities.”
Some countries not only insist on complete secrecy, or demand outrageous prices. They also take advantage of Israel’s predicament, demanding a return they were very unlikely to have gotten in the past, including the reciprocal sale of Israeli-manufactured advanced boutique technology.
A third-world country, never mind from which continent, or whether it uses the Cyrillic or Arabic script, demanded, and received, military technology that may include advanced UAVs, computerized warfare systems, etc. in exchange for the most basic needs such as gunpowder, shells, explosive devices and other low-tech military equipment.
According to the sources who spoke to Ynet's sister publication Yedioth Aharonoth, some of these deals weren’t entirely formal, almost under the table. With Defense Ministry approval, but at lightning speed.
This is what it’s like in Israel’s new race for arms, which has itself become a battle. The arms justify the means, even via dubious sources, even with far-flung countries. We just need something to shoot.
The problem: The prolongation of the war
During the week following October 7, IDF officers opened up the emergency arsenal storerooms of two Northen and Southern Command reserves divisions (146th and 252nd respectively) and their faces dropped.
Alongside the shortage of equipment, such as walkie-talkies, ceramic vests, weapons and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles not fit for use, they realized that over 50% of commanders didn’t have the night-vision devices (NVDs), needed for the upcoming ground operation. These instruments are critical for any modern ground warfare, and Hamas and Hezbollah already had them.
There are only a few companies in the world that know how to manufacture NVDs meeting military standards. “Elbit is one such company, and we knew that it already had a deal finalized at the time to supply the American Army with 10,000 bino and monocular NVDs,” says an officer who was involved.
“So, we swiftly asked the American Army if they would turn this deal over to us. They explained, however, that only a presidential decree could release the equipment that was already in U.S. Army warehouses. We paid $127 million for these NVDs, got the presidential decree and flew them straight to officers in Gaza as, even on those first days, we knew we were going for a long war. That was one of many complex measures we’ve taken along the line to equip the army.”
And the root cause of the problem is the long war: Over the years, the IDF had readied for short wars of a few weeks. “Short wars were a national necessity,” a senior ranking officer tells us. “The Israeli economy can’t take, and may consequently collapse from, a long war. The Israeli public, on whose civil-Zionist sentiment the IDF’s strength as a reservist army rests, will erode accordingly. The political echelon instructed the IDF to prepare for a short, deadly war with powerful opening strikes. Bang-and-we’re-done, if you like—like in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.”
With this as a working assumption, one might rely on importing weapons and armaments from other countries. “With hindsight, for our military buildup, we had developed an existential defense dependence on the United States and countries such as Germany. This relies on an extremely dangerous amalgam of foreign products,” says a senior defense official. “It has to change, even if the costs are high.”
But the war dragged on and the arsenals were depleting. Left with no choice, the IDF was forced to economize its arms use. And this comes at a price. Forces operating now for weeks in Jabaliya are getting less UAV time. Tanks are going out on operations with limited shells. They also have fewer D9 bulldozers. Some of the equipment has been transferred to Lebanon, some has been hit or worn out in Gaza. There are also fewer using precision weapons, such as suicide drones or precision steel-penetrating laser-guided mortars. On the ground, there’s no real difference for now.
“Personally, I believe that statistically, artillery and direct tank fire are more effective than expensive precision weapons,” says an officer fighting in northern Gaza. “Killing a terrorist using a tank shell or sniper, rather than a missile fired from a UAV, is regarded as more ‘professional’.”
The various configurations of explosive materials are also being carefully managed by the IDF. “Only last month, IDF forces used 100 tons of gunpowder to blow up a network of Hezbollah tunnels in the north. We’ve collapsed hundreds of miles of tunnels in Gaza and have still only reached half,” says a senior officer. “Where do you think we have so much gunpowder from?”
There’s only one answer to this question: From wherever possible, and as quickly as we can. The defense establishment has been forced into “barter” deals with foreign armies, and speeding up weapons inspection that used to take months. In one case, a huge shipment of explosives arrived for the ground forces in the dead of night from a country whose military equipment isn’t known for its world standards.
Instead of a lengthy, ordered, inspection, the material was transferred directly to Testing Ground 24, by the Rishon Lezion coastline. Technological and Logistics Directorate (ATAL) officers test-fired a few hundred of these weapons in the field, tested to see if they met regulations, took X-ray photographs of them, and immediately sent them to soldiers waiting for them avidly on the battlefield.
"Some people in the U.S. Army are in love with Israel, and support us in ways it’s hard to describe. Like homies.”
In these ways, thousands of weapons from overseas have been assimilated into the IDF over the past year. “Yes,” the IDF will admit, “the haste meant that even when some weapons failed preliminary testing and weren’t sent to the soldiers, most of the weapons we bought, including advanced aerial weapons that we received from countries you wouldn’t believe would agree to sell to us—were in working order. To arm the IDF, we found ourselves in places you’d never imagine.”
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In these desperate times, the defense establishment turned to “jobbers”—international arms dealers specializing in brokering indirect deals. “With the international arms race, everyone’s doing it,” says the defense establishment. “Not all jobbers are reliable, but sometimes, we have no choice.”
A senior defense official familiar with the matter explains how it works: “The Ukrainians don’t pay for many of their arms purchases. Someone else—various third parties—will buy for them, and this affects our arms race.”
The official also recalls an unusual situation this past year illustrating the dangers of working with wheeler-dealer arms traders: The IDF requested to quickly purchase artillery fuzes for a critical weapon. This fuze didn’t exist in Israel’s weapons industry and defense establishment procurement officials checked with these “jobbers.” One jobber told the Israelis that there was a manufacturing facility in a certain country (naming a third-world country) that has this fuze. The condition, however, was a 25-year Israeli investment in this facility.”
So, what did you do?
“We quickly sent a representative of ours. After spending a whole day looking for this weapons factory—in a very exotic country—he met the local broker, and then went looking for the plant.”
What did he find?
“Mostly ruins. When he got back to Israel, he told us that there were no fuzes there, no warehouses and no factory—but at least the food was great. It’s important to understand that we’re leaving no stone unturned to find weapons and weapons substitutes for the IDF, and we need to investigate any rumor in this crazy market. States buy from wherever they can. We had cases where we purchased weapons that we learned were faulty when they got to Israel, and we had to send them back.”
The defense establishment stresses that most arms deals are between governments, but that the arms race and relentless pressure to arm the IDF, means there are individual cases purchasing arms from “a selling, but state, source.” This essentially refers to an arms dealer on the government’s behalf. Third-world African countries, for example, with arms they had once bought sitting in warehouses, are now offering to sell them. Within weeks, these “goods” will reach a Givati battalion in Jabaliya in Gaza or an Engineering Corps soldier in Maroun El Ras in Lebanon.
“Every ‘hand’ along the way, obviously makes the product more expensive. We had cases where they asked for a 150% downpayment as they’d heard on the news that the IDF now needed more weapons,” says a defense official.
7 View gallery
Ukraine is also fighting for every bit of weapons it can get its hands on
(Photo: Olga Kovalova)
“The market’s gone so crazy that arms dealers approached us at the start of the war telling us that they knew about warehouses of shell fuzes in Switzerland—despite there being no such thing in Switzerland. There are arms dealers, primarily Israelis, who won’t bluff us. They’re mainly ex-Israeli defense, and their reputation is important to them. Some dealers will sell their own grandmother for the chance of another deal selling 5 tons of TNT.”
So, what do you do?
“In efforts to overcome this and speed up deals, we’ve learned how to work with several sources and dealers simultaneously.”
Defense officials sent to these countries to procure weapons for the IDF say that some of these countries are not officially on our side. “These might be Muslim countries that, on one hand, will firmly condemn Israel and provide safe haven to terrorist organizations,” says one official, “and on the other, sell us weapons without batting an eyelid, so long as we maintain full discretion.”
Why do we have to buy from these countries?
“The Americans have arms, good for decades, scattered across the globe. CENTCOM (United States Central Command) has a great deal of weapons, and they’ve been opening up these arsenals to give us military equipment over the past year. There were times they found they’d miscalculated and didn’t have enough for themselves, claiming ‘they too are at war.' Generally speaking, however, they go out of their way to help us with supplies. We don’t get everything from the U.S. though.”
American homies
And still, Israel’s main weapons provider is the United States. The diplomatic fall-out and lack of trust between the Israeli government and the Democratic U.S. administration hardly improves—to say the least—Israel’s armament in the throes of war.
So, to secure Israeli armaments, senior officials are sometimes forced into using personal relationships they’ve developed with their U.S. Army colleagues. Some of this aid borders on begging. That American aircraft carrier remained in the Middle East in recent months, only thanks to a personal request by a senior IDF officer to CENTCOM officers and Gen. Michael Kurilla, widely viewed as very sympathetic to Israel’s needs.
Senior ranking officers tell us of friendly WhatsApp conversations with their American counterparts culminating in whole containers of explosive materials earmarked for U.S. forces being shipped to the IDF from explosive materials superpower Taiwan, or from Guam in the Pacific Ocean that’s under U.S. military control.
“CENTCOM officers release armaments wherever they can,” says a senior ranking IDF official. "They also help with the transportation by land or sea, and speed up maritime and aerial procedures to Israel. This is global in many senses. Some people in the U.S. Army are in love with Israel, and support us in ways it’s hard to describe. Like homies.”
One of these homies is CENTCOM deputy commander, three-star general Brad Cooper. “Almost each week, Cooper will receive a request for aid from the IDF. He’ll contact his friends in the U.S. Army and send messages to senior ranking U.S. officers across the globe to see who can, in a matter of days, transfer to the IDF certain weapons from arsenals scattered across the globe.”
At the same time, however, IDF is also feeling the reverberations from the Washington-Jerusalem political fallout and President Joe Biden’s veto of some of the shipments. At the beginning of this year, a routine shipment of 3,000 JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs for the Air Force was supposed to arrive. This is a kit of sorts that transforms a “dumb” bomb designated to be simply thrown into the air on a ballistic flightpath, into a “smart” bomb, self-guiding itself to its predetermined target. Approximately half the shipment consisted of half-ton bombs, the rest weighing one ton.
The payment to Boeing, the manufacturer, was made in shekels, rather than dollars from the aid monies. The IDF swiftly leased a ship to carry this shipment from a port near New York to Ashdod. At the last minute, however, the White House ordered halting the shipment. IDF top brass were left astounded, and only after weeks of persuasion, chiefly by former defense minister Yoav Gallant opposite his Pentagon counterpart, was the shipment approved—in part. Only the half-ton bombs were sent to Israel.
The Americans officially claimed that the one-ton bombs might cause extraordinary peripheral damage, killing uninvolved civilians mainly in Gaza. These containers of bombs, for which the Israeli tax-payer had paid millions of shekels, are meanwhile at an East Coast port. The army is now looking for storage space for them to stop them from rusting.
Another, no less critical, shipment stuck in the U.S. is that of 130 D9 diggers for the Engineering Corps, still awaiting transportation from the Caterpillar plant to Israel. This vast shipment is pending approval from State Department officials. Engineering Corps heavy-duty equipment personnel desperately need these vehicles that have proven decisive in this war.
'We have to change our way of thinking'
The U.S. administration has more problems than its political fallout with Israel: It has committed to supplying Ukraine with arms too, and the needs of Ukraine’s army and those of the IDF invariably clash. Everyone needs artillery shells. Right now.
This was Gallant’s first conversation with his American counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, in the first hours of October 7. Understanding that Israel was going to war, Gallant asked Austin for a few urgent things. One amazed the secretary of defense.
“Fifty thousand artillery shells?” he asked. “Is that what you’re short of right now? You have far more than that. The shells are already in Germany on their way to Ukraine.” These were the 50,000 American artillery shells stored in emergency U.S. Army warehouses in Israel for any emergency that may arise. Like the war in Gaza.
Truth be told, far more shells—around 250,000—were stored mainly in secret warehouses in southern Israel. Back in 2022, however, Israel received an urgent request to approve transferring these shells to Ukraine. Israel didn’t foresee a major military conflict at the time. The Russians were pounding the Ukrainians and Jerusalem agreed the shells would leave from here. Two hundred thousand shells had already reached Ukraine. Another 50,000 were already in Germany, also about to be shipped out to Ukraine. With American approval, Gallant managed to halt that shipment and bring it back to Israel.
What will happen down the line with the shells?
Defense Ministry envoys are running around the world to find more. In February, Elbit was asked to increase its local artillery shell production lines. Elbit is in the planning stages of setting up a plant in the Negev to add to its factories in the Sharon and northern Israel. And then? Artillery personnel will have to be careful about firing any 155 mm projectile.
The U.S. is, obviously, not the world’s only arms producer, but buying from other countries is an extremely politically charged affair. We have the Western countries who’ve declared arms embargos on Israel. In some cases, it’s for show: Canada declared an embargo, while in practice only ever supplied a tiny quantity of arms to Israel.
The French embargo, on the other hand, does damage Israeli armament efforts. “We never depended on the French anyway,” says a defense establishment official. “Their leadership harbors a burning hatred toward Israel.”
Italy, which Israel believed would support Israel following the election of right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, halted its supply of cannon shells for Israeli Navy vessels and spare parts for them at the start of the war. Israel purchased these weapons—no surprise—from the U.S. The Defense Ministry is making efforts to increase Israeli production as an alternative to this dependency.
Germany, as mentioned, is one major arms supplier to the IDF that continues to support Israel, as do Hungary and the Czech Republic. Despite Britain officially publishing a black list of weapons export licenses to Israel that have been frozen, in practice, some weapons are still being sold and are reaching Israel. This mainly includes components for avionics systems and parts for weapons production lines for Israeli ground forces. And what about all the rest? Like we said, Israel will have to get them on its own.
Here’s another story illustrating the problems of Israeli arms producers’ dependency on foreign sources, in a country such as Israel. At the beginning of this year, an Israeli arms manufacturer noticed signs suggesting that a company supplying it with explosive raw materials was caving into pressure and was about to cut off supply.
“We’re talking about tens of tons of various kinds of explosive raw materials, without which we can’t produce thousands of missiles, bombs, interceptors and a wide range of other weapons for the IDF. And this was in the middle of a year of war,” says an official familiar with the incident.
So, what did you do?
“Even before this boycott was official, we managed to quickly turn to another supplier and seal a new deal so as not to find ourselves stuck with an acute shortage of weapons for the soldiers. These are things that have to be spotted early on. You need to act quickly. If you don’t, you’re in a huge mess.”
Army and arms manufacturers sources say that one lesson learned from this new arms race is that Israel will need to set up a huge national stockpile of explosives for manufacturing various IDF weapons to last years ahead.
The IDF’s 23 attachés across the globe have also been recruited to the procurement campaign. By the first month of the war, the Defense Ministry headquarters gave them a list, instructing them to turn to their respective local defense ministries and activate the connections they’d cultivated. It was now money time.
“This is how I found myself dropping ‘multi-national’ bombs,” says a senior pilot. The fuze is from Asia, the GPS kit from some a German warehouse, and the weapon’s central component is from an American warehouse in Japan.”
The Planning Directorate’s foreign relations department made efforts to free up supply lines that had never been open to Israel, including countries officially condemning Israel. “There’s a country that agreed to sell us certain weaponry, only on certain transportation conditions,” says an IDF officer.
So, what did you do?
“We were forced to transport the shipment with connections between cargo planes and trucks and ships jaunting from one place to the next. Some of the equipment arrived after ‘14 working days,' but some of it sailed between far-off continents for months before reaching the guy in the tank in Jabaliya.”
The two men running this complex round-the-world effort are Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Amir Baram and head of the Planning and Force Build-up Directorate Maj. Gen. Eyal Harel. They have a clear division of responsibilities: Baram deals with the army internally—who needs what and when; Harel tries to get hold of it from foreign armies and governments.
Defense Ministry procurement personnel are also trying to untangle bureaucratic obstacles and pacify treasury personnel. The game is mainly about speed. With all the conflicts across the globe, lots of people will be jumping at the chance to buy a single ton of explosive materials.
“We need to wake up. We’re not alone in the world,” says a senior IDF official. “Arms manufacturers’ production lines open up and are snatched up in the blink of an eye. You must understand: even if Resolution 1701 is implemented tomorrow, Hezbollah retreats north of the Litani, there’s a full hostage deal in Gaza and cease-fire prevails over the Middle East, we’ll still only be at the start of the IDF’s military buildup for years, decades to come. It’s also clear that it won’t be the same IDF as we had before October 7.”
The IDF is wary of the delay in the procurement of new “Reshef” Sa’ar ships manufactured for the Navy by Israel Shipyards Ltd., replacing the outdated Nirit 4.5. The acquisition deal for JLVT (known in the IDF as “Para”) tank parts, designed mainly to replace the old M113 APC, is moving forward. The concern, however, as mentioned, is for urgent armament. This includes purchasing hundreds of Tamir interceptors for Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling batteries.
“The Iranians aren’t stupid,” says an IDF official about the need for interceptors. “Between rounds, they are tweaking their methods and trying to manipulate our aerial defense systems—be against fire from Iran, Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq.”
So, what do you do?
“We have to ease up regulations, change our way of thinking. We have years of fighting ahead, and on more than one front.”