Israel's Air Force blazes air superiority path to Iran's border

• Israel has used its Air Force to strike its enemies with impunity.
• Syria's collapse now gives it unprecedented power in the air, right up to Iran's border.
• "Israel now has open skies to Iran," a Middle East analyst told BI.

The Israeli Air Force has long been regarded as the Middle East's premier aerial fleet, supplied in large part with US-made aircraft and munitions. But in the past year it has gone further, showing its aircraft can strike any of its adversaries with impunity and establishing unprecedented air superiority across wide stretches of the region.

It gutted Russian and Iranian-made air defenses in Iran, daring Iranian leaders to strike back with fewer defenses. It destroyed stocks of Hezbollah's missile arsenal in southern Lebanon and killed its top leader with a precision airstrike on his underground headquarters.

Its power was so formidable in Syria that the Assad regime and Russia secretly asked Israel to spare Assad's military, according to allegedly classified documents found in the country after that brutal regime collapsed in December.

In the wake of that collapse, Israel seized the opportunity. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed the country's vast majority of air defenses and Syrian military stockpiles.

Across 15 months of war, instigated by the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist massacre by Hamas into Israel, the IAF has emerged supreme and is basking in its moment.

"Fighter pilots, if they wanted, could now merrily fly in pairs, with visible operating systems, at any altitude, to any range, to any spot in Israel's first circle of defense," reported the Israeli news site Ynet in late December.

Israel has long possessed the most powerful air force in the Middle East and one of the most powerful and technologically advanced anywhere in the world. It boasts over 600 aircraft and over 30,000 active personnel, with no less than 50,000 in reserve. It operates the second-largest fleet of F-16s in the world and is the only regional country that currently flies the F-35 stealth jet. Furthermore, Israel has its own version of that fifth-generation aircraft, a privilege no other country enjoys.

The IAF overwhelmingly consists of American-made aircraft that also include Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. Israel also flies a large fleet of F-15s and recently signed a $5.2 billion deal for 25 highly advanced F-15IA variants.

The IAF plays a pivotal role in the defense of Israel. It gave the small country a critical qualitative edge over its larger Arab adversaries in historical conflicts, most notably the June 1967 Six Day War.

The IAF's newfound supremacy goes beyond previous wars. For example, it previously destroyed several Soviet-built Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in a complex operation in 1982 and shot down over 80 Syrian fighter jets without incurring any losses in return. While December's operation saw the IAF strike all across Syria, the operation wasn't nearly as sophisticated or dangerous as that historical episode; many of the air defenses in the latest operation were abandoned or in low states of readiness.

"We know one reason possibly restraining Israel was a recently exposed secret agreement with Russia and Syria in which Israel agreed to refrain from wider targeting of Syria's military," said Sebastien Roblin, a widely published military aviation journalist.

Israel launched an enormous long-range air and drone attack against Iran on the night of October 26 in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage against it on October 1. The IAF targeted some Syrian air defenses in the lead-up to the attack.

The IAF also used Iraqi airspace that October night and reportedly targeted early warning radars and sensors in both Syria and Iraq, which were part of a network Iran established in the region to detect incoming Israeli attacks. While the IAF used standoff munitions, including air-launched ballistic missiles, some Israeli aircraft are believed to have penetrated Iranian airspace.

"From what we currently know, some Israeli aircraft did reportedly breach Iranian airspace, though not, from what I've seen, very far," Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, told BI.

"That was in part a demonstration of capability and in part an operational necessity to effectively hit deep targets," Bohl said.

Israel stated some aircraft entered Iranian airspace, which were likely stealthy Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II jets and newly revealed long-range drones. Roblin said it's unclear if these aircraft released weapons over Iran. They could have been there to help "precisely locate key targets" and guide weapons fired by other aircraft over significant distances.

"The strike certainly had the effect of dispelling deterrence benefits of Iran's more advanced air defenses (Russian S-300 systems)," Roblin said. However, as in the case with Syria before December, Iran's remaining air defenses "still have some value in compelling use of more expensive standoff munitions and perhaps absorbing a percentage of incoming weapons."

Israel's campaign against the remnants of the Syrian military has major implications for Iran. Should Syria's airspace remain permissive to Israeli aircraft, Israel can fly its tanker aircraft closer to Iranian airspace than previously possible.

"If medium/high-altitude air defenses were truly fully destroyed, then Israel's ordinarily vulnerable tanker aircraft could indeed theoretically access Syrian airspace and refuel fighters, which could enable higher volume attacks on Iran," Roblin said.

With Syrian air defenses eliminated, Bohl believes that "Israel now has open skies to Iran."

It will likely take years before Syria manages to reestablish significant air defenses.

"The one-two-punch of Assad regime's collapse followed by Israeli strikes on surviving equipment mean Syria will require a much longer time-frame to reconstitute an air- and ground-based defense capability through expensive new equipment purchases," Roblin said. "So, Israel's ability to attack targets at will has been improved, though it was already more than adequate."

Airpower, of course, has its limits. Israel's aerial bombing has damaged roughly two-thirds of all buildings in Gaza, but it was a foot patrol that found and killed Hamas' hardline leader, who orchestrated the 10/7 attacks. Similarly, waves of Israeli airstrikes have failed to stop Iran from nuclear weapons development and uranium enrichment.

With Russia's influence diminishing, Turkey appears destined to become the new Syria's main military backer. Ankara has already offered to help Damascus rebuild the Syrian military.

"For now, Israel can ignore Syria as a defensive layer for Iran; it's just geography to fly over now," RANE's Bohl said. "But that is unlikely to be a permanent condition, and eventually, Syria's air defenses will, in some capacity, return."

"And should Turkey provide them, (that) might complicate Israel's regional strategy in a new way."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.