Tel Aviv: While Israel is in the midst of an effort to rebuild its stockpiles of different types of ammunition that have been used extensively in the ongoing war, the Israeli Ministry of Defence is allocating big budgets for the accelerated development of new systems.
Last week, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) reported a new contract with the ministry worth $700 million. The company declined to provide further details, other than the fact that its execution will be spread over five years. The Defence Ministry is not only a significant customer of the company, but also part of its owner, as a government company.
This is IAI’s first giant deal in 2025, and will be reported as part of its results for the first quarter of the year. The company has not yet reported its full results for 2024, including the last quarter.
In the first three quarters of 2025, the company’s sales increased by 13% to $4.393 billion, net profit in the first nine months increased by about 74% to about $416 million, and its order backlog reached a historic high of $25 billion, thanks in part to orders worth billions from the Ministry of Defence.
The details of the big contract are highly classified but it can be assessed that the money will go for the development of new long range missiles, new systems for the Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter aircraft and long range detection systems.
It can also be assessed that the long range ballistic missiles made by IAI will be ”modified” so that they can be used in any future confrontation with Iran and its proxies like the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
According to Missile Threat website, the Jericho -3 missile is reportedly equipped with a 750 kg nuclear warhead with a yield between 150 and 400 kT.
”It is suspected that there are decoys included in the payload and several independently targeted RVs (if equipped with the smaller nuclear yield). It has a range of 4,800 to 6,500 km and uses inertial guidance with a radar guided warhead,” according to the website.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
