The Israeli Air Force Performed Midair Refueling in Syrian Airspace

By Jim Geraghty

Friday, June 13, 2025

 

For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that Israeli airstrikes against targets in certain parts of Iran would be difficult, if not impossible, because of the range of Israel’s variant of the F-16 fighter jet, about 1,040 miles.

 

But the Israeli Air Force has been practicing midair refueling.

 

On Aug. 15, 2024, the Israeli Air Force carried out an air refueling exercise involving their 707 “Re’em” tankers and F-35I “Adir” and F-15C/D “Baz” fighters. One extremely rare aspect of the exercise was that the receiver aircraft were all armed with live weapons.

 

“The exercise simulated long-range flight deep behind enemy lines, performing aerial refueling in short periods of time. Aerial refueling is an operational capability required by the combat force, enabling it to remain airborne for long periods of time,” mentioned the social media posts made by the Israeli Air Force.

 

…In the released images we also see Israel’s newest fighter, the F-35I “Adir”, flying in “full stealth mode” without radar reflectors. Notably, the Israeli Air Force has previously claimed their F-35s can reach Iran without refueling. The claim was vague and without many details, but it was assumed to be in reference to new, “stealthy” drop tanks or conformal fuel tanks (CFT).

 

Of course, a tanker plane and its trailing jet fighter are more vulnerable to attack when they’re refueling, so it is difficult, or at least risky, to refuel a plane over enemy territory. But with Syria under new management, the definition of “enemy territory” may be different from what it was before last December.

Already online there are claims that Syrian president Ahmed al‑Sharaa himself is said to have greenlit the use of Syrian airspace. While that claim is unproven, it is true that his comments about Israel are remarkably conciliatory for a former jihadist.

 

Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara has said that his country could cooperate with Israel on security matters and that he is open to negotiations between the two countries.

 

Al-Shara made the comments during a meeting in April with a delegation of American businesspeople led by Jewish-American entrepreneur Jonathan Bass, published in the Jewish Journal. The group traveled to Damascus with the aim of jumpstarting economic ties between the two nations and encouraging American investment in Syria’s war-ravaged economy. The meeting was seen as a potential stepping stone toward restoring diplomatic relations between Syria and the US, and to lifting a significant portion of American sanctions on Syria.

 

“I want to be clear,” al-Shara said in reference to Israel. “The era of endless mutual bombings must come to an end. No country can thrive when its skies are filled with fear. The reality is that we have common enemies, and we can play a major role in regional security.”

 

“Peace must be earned through mutual respect, not fear. We will engage where there is honesty and a clear path to coexistence — and walk away from anything less,” the Syrian president said regarding possible negotiations with Israel.

 

And as the man leading the forces that overthrew the Assad regime, al‑Sharaa does not have warm and fuzzy feelings for the Iranian regime. There’s also the not-so-small matter of the Syrian Air Force being a shadow of what it once was. Even if the new Syrian government wanted to attack Israeli jets refueling in their airspace, one has to wonder how enthusiastic any Syrian pilot would be to get into the cockpit of a MiG-21, which the Soviet Union stopped making in 1986 — and dogfight against the best jets of the Israeli Air Force.