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The Israeli Air Force received a significant addition to its air superiority with three new F-35 stealth fighter jets called by the Hebrew name Adir, which arrived at the Nevatim air base last week to join the 116th squadron.
According to a statement released by the IDF, the squadron accumulated over 15,000 operational flight hours since the start of the war and participated in thousands of sorties across all theaters.
The stealth jets took part in operations including the assassination of the leadership of the Hezbollah terror group in Beirut and leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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IDF strike on the Dahieh quarter of Beirut killing Nasrallah
(Reuters)
The jets also participated in missions deep inside Lebanon and further afield as well as in the West Bank.
The Adir was the first fighter jet to shoot down a cruise missile targeting Israel in October 2023 and other hostile aerial threats, the IDF said.
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"The Adir was originally designed to carry munitions in an internal weapons bay. During the war, a new capability was integrated at the Flight Test Center in collaboration with Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Program at the Pentagon, enabling the external carriage of JDAM munitions on the aircraft’s wings," the IDF said in its statement. "The Israeli Adir is the only F-35 in the world to have conducted operational strikes with an external weapons configuration, significantly increasing its strike capacity."