Image copyright Israel Defense Forces Image caption Israel has ordered 50 F-35s

The US-made F-35 stealth fighter has seen its first ever combat action, flying in an operation for the Israeli air force.

The air force chief showed an image of jets over Beirut, Lebanon, and said the planes had "already attacked twice on two different fronts".

Israel recently carried out scores of air strikes in Syria.

The F-35, from the world's priciest military programme, has been criticised both for cost and combat effectiveness.

Last year, Defence Secretary James Mattis had to defend the programme after then President-elect Donald Trump tweeted criticising its huge price, said to be close to $100m (£74m) per plane.

'Game-changer'

Maj Gen Amikam Norkin told heads of 20 foreign air forces meeting in Israel: "We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts." He did not specify the targets.

"You know that we just won the Eurovision with the song 'Toy.' Well, the F-35 is not a toy," he said.

Israel, the first country outside the US to acquire the single-seat fighter, has received nine of the 50 F-35s it has so far ordered, and could take up to 75.

In Israel it is referred to by its Hebrew name "Adir" (Mighty). The jets are believed to be the F-35A variant - conventional takeoff and landing.

The BBC's Tom Bateman in Jerusalem says Israel's claim to have used it in an operational strike even before the Americans may be designed as a further show of military strength, as it believes elite Iranian forces are trying to entrench themselves in Syria to threaten Israel.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Syrian state TV footage shows Israeli missiles over Damascus

Israel said its recent air strikes inside Syria targeted Iranian military infrastructure, in response to rocket fire aimed at Israeli military positions in the occupied Golan Heights.

Iran has hundreds of personnel in Syria, who it says serve as military advisers to the Syrian army. It has also sent thousands of volunteer fighters in support of the Syrian government.

The US has given Israel more military aid than any other country in the world - currently around $4bn a year - and its laws on arms sales require that Israel always maintains military superiority in the Middle East.

F-35: Why its maker says it's so advanced

Image copyright Reuters

Developed by Lockheed Martin and first flown in 2006, the main reason for the fighter is its versatility, projected to serve the US Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy in one design

Three variants: conventional takeoff (A); short takeoff and vertical landing (B) and carrier-based catapult (C)

Stealth is clearly a key factor, its airframe and design materials allow pilots to penetrate areas without being detected by radar

This gives it a small radar cross-section, which is said to allow it to engage enemy aircraft before they see it. A helmet-mounted display system means the jet does not have to be pointing at its target to fire weapons

But it's the sensors, communications and avionics that it trumpets the most - data is shared immediately with operational commanders, and pilots can track the enemy, jam radars and thwart attacks

Israel has praised the Lockheed Martin F-35 as a "game-changer".

This may not even be its first use by Israel. Its military is often quiet about its operations and there were reports that the stealth fighter had been used operationally as early as January last year.

The US has certainly put a lot of faith in a programme that is expected to run through to 2070 and is projected to cost $1.5tn by then.

However, it has also come in for heavy criticism and not just over the price.

An influential military blog in 2015 reported that the F-35 lacked manoeuvrability and was unable to beat an F-16 in a dogfight. It was also reported to have cockpit visibility issues.

Analysts say the emphasis on stealth capabilities may have compromised air-to-air effectiveness.</s>An Israeli F-35I over Nevatim, Israel Israeli Air Force

Isreal used its US-made F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet in combat in the raging air war over Syria, making it the first country to ever to do so, its military confirmed on Tuesday.

"The Adir planes are already operational and flying in operational missions. We are the first in the world to use the F-35 in operational activity," Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, commander of the Israeli Air Force said, referring to the Israeli version of the F-35 as the Adir.

"We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts," Norkin told a meeting of air force chiefs in Israel, as Reuters notes.

Shlomo Brom, a retired brigadier general in the Israeli Air Force, told Business Insider that one of those fronts was over Syria after Iranian forces fired rockets towards Israel and Israel's air force launched a blistering retaliation that killed dozens of Iranians and hit more than 50 individual targets.

That specific air battle saw Israeli jets pound Russian-made Syrian air defenses that had been made to counter older jets like Israel's F-15 and F-16s. In February, during a similar battle, Israel lost an F-16 to Syrian air defenses.

"The Iranians fired 32 rockets, we intercepted four of them, and the rest fell outside Israeli territory," Norkin said of the battle. "In our response attack, more than 100 ground-to-air missiles were fired at our planes."

The F-35 is the "ideal" platform for the congested skies over Syria, according to retired US Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Berke, a former F-35 squadron commander.

F-35 vs. Russian defenses

Screenshot/IDF

Fighting over Syria often gets near Damascus, one of the more heavily protected cities in the world with powerful Russian missile defense batteries protecting its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It's unclear whether Syrian or Russian defenses tracked or attempted to engage the F-35s, but the stealth jet makes itself difficult to find.

When Israel released video of one of its bombs destroying a Russian air defense system, Russian media offered excuses as to why it failed to stop the incoming missile.

Russia explained that the system was either not battle-ready or had run out of munitions. But Israel's announcement on Tuesday brings in a new possibility — that it had been bombed by the first combat deployment of the F-35.</s>Israel says it is the first country to use US-made F-35 in combat

JERUSALEM: Israel is the first country to have used the US -made F-35 stealth fighter in combat, the Israeli air force chief said on Tuesday in remarks carried by the military’s official Twitter account.

Local media further quoted Major-General Amikam Norkin as saying in a speech to the chiefs of 20 foreign air forces convening in Israel: “We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts”. Norkin also displayed a photograph of an Israeli F-35 overflying Beirut, local media said.

Manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp, the F-35 is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter and, in Israel, by its Hebrew name “Adir” (Mighty). Israel was the first country outside the United States to acquire the F-35. In December 2016, it received the first two planes out of an order of 50. According to Israeli media, at least nine have been delivered so far.

Israel says it has carried out scores of strikes in Syria against suspected Iranian emplacements or arms transfers to Hezbollah guerrillas in neighbouring Lebanon. Its air forces is also widely believed to have operated over against Islamist militants in the Egyptian Sinai and Hamas arms smugglers in Sudan.</s>The following content is sourced from external partners. We cannot guarantee that it is suitable for the visually or hearing impaired.

This content was published on May 22, 2018 8:21 AM

FILE PHOTO: An Israeli Air Force F-35 fighter jet flies during an aerial demonstration at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots at the Hatzerim Airbase in southern Israel, December 27, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is the first country to have used the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter in combat, the Israeli air force chief said on Tuesday in remarks carried by the military's official Twitter account.

Local media further quoted Major-General Amikam Norkin as saying in a speech to the chiefs of 20 foreign air forces convening in Israel: "We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts".

Norkin also displayed a photograph of an Israeli F-35 overflying Beirut, local media said.

Manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp, the F-35 is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter and, in Israel, by its Hebrew name "Adir" (Mighty).

Israel was the first country outside the United States to acquire the F-35. In December 2016, it received the first two planes out of an order of 50. According to Israeli media, at least nine have been delivered so far.

Israel says it has carried out scores of strikes in Syria against suspected Iranian emplacements or arms transfers to Hezbollah guerrillas in neighbouring Lebanon.

Its air forces is also widely believed to have operated over against Islamist militants in the Egyptian Sinai and Hamas arms smugglers in Sudan.</s>JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is the first country to have used the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter in combat, the Israeli air force chief said on Tuesday in remarks carried by the military’s official Twitter account.

Israeli media further quoted Major-General Amikam Norkin as saying: “We are flying the F-35 all of the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts”.</s>There is a running joke that while the US is the world's biggest maker and exporter of weapons, no other country uses military equipment and weapons as much as Israel. And, when it comes to state-of-the-art fighter jets, this is now officially the case: an Israeli military official said Israel was the first regime in the world to have used the US-made F-35 stealth fighter jets in attack mode, claiming that the fighter jets have been twice used in the Middle East.

"We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East. It had become part of our operational capabilities. We are the first to attack using the F-35 in the Middle East and have already attacked twice on different fronts,” Israeli air force chief Amikam Norkin said at a conference in Herzilya on Tuesday.

The Israeli Air Force chief, however, did not specify which targets were actually hit by the jets, though Tel Aviv recently launched a massive attack inside war-ravaged neighbor Syria. It has also been blamed for a number of similar attacks, though weaker in scale.

Israel has been “managing a campaign against Iranian forces, especially on Israel’s northern border” for the past two years, Norkin stressed, adding that Iran launched 32 missiles toward Israel in early May.

He also displayed a photo that he said showed one Israeli F-35 over Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

Manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp, the F-35 is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter and, in Israel, by its Hebrew name "Adir" (Mighty). In December 2016, Israel was the first regime outside the US to obtain the fighter jet when it got the first two planes out of an order of 50. Tel Aviv has at least nine so far.

Norkin said that while the F-35 did not take part in the most recent airstrike on Syria, it did so in the two previous strikes.

It will hardly be the last time Israel uses ultramodern weapons against its neighbors as the Israeli regime has a storied history of airstrikes in the region; over the past few years, the Israeli military has launched sporadic attacks against various targets on Syrian soil. Earlier this month, Israeli jets attacked dozens of targets inside Syria in what some alleged was a provoked attack meant to give greenlight an Israeli airborne incursion into Syria where various Iranian military outposts were attacked.

On May 10, minister of military affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, claimed that Israel had "hit almost all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria" in response to a barrage of 20 rockets fired at Israeli military outposts in the occupied Golan Heights. However, the Syrian ambassador to China, Imad Moustapha, rejected the Israeli claim that its assault had been directed at Iranian infrastructure.

In February, Israel was furious when the Syrian military hit at least one intruding Israeli F-16 warplane that attacked positions inside Syrian territory, sending it down in flames. The warplane was the first Israeli fighter jet lost in 35 years, since the regime’s war on Lebanon in 1982.

Reports said that the displaying of a photo of the fighter jet flying over Lebanon is considered an implicit threat to the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah. The Israeli regime has waged three wars on Lebanon — in 1982, 2000, and 2006. It has also carried out assassinations in Lebanese territory.

The Israeli military also frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, where civilians are often collateral damage of such attacks. On May 17, Israeli fighter planes carried out bombing raids on several locations in northern Gaza.

Israel has also launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military operation, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.</s>Israel has struck targets in the Middle East with the F-35 Adir stealth fighter jet twice, Israel Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin said Tuesday, becoming the first country to use the US-made jet in combat.



“We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East. It had become part of our operational capabilities. We are the first to attack using the F-35 in the Middle East and have already attacked twice on different fronts,” he said during the IAF Senior Air Force Conference in Herzilya.





Norkin made the comments while showing a picture of one Israeli F-35 flying over the Lebanese capital of Beirut during the day. He did not mention when the picture was taken.Israel declared initial operational capability of the world’s most advanced jet in December after receiving nine F-35s. The Air Force is expected to receive a total of 50 planes to make two full squadrons by 2024.With an extremely low radar signature, the F-35 is able to operate undetected deep inside enemy territory such as Iran as well as evade advanced missile defense systems like the advanced Russian-made S-300 missile defense system which Tehran announced in March had become operational.Israel is also said to be still considering acquiring F-35B Lightning II short takeoff/vertical landing jets. According to Lockheed Martin, the B variant “is designed to operate from austere bases and a range of air-capable ships near frontline combat zones. It can also take off and land conventionally from longer runways on major bases.”This could be crucial in times of war when air force bases - and particularly runways - run the risk of being targeted by enemy missiles and rockets.Current US Department of Defense plans state that Washington will acquire a total of 2,456 F-35s from the United States Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. According to Lockheed Martin, over 280 F-35 aircraft have been delivered and are operating from 15 bases around the globe with over 580 pilots and 5,600 maintainers who have been trained on the aircraft whose fleet has surpassed more than 130,000 cumulative flight hours.</s>Israeli Air Force F-35s over the Mediterranean Sea as part of Independence Day celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the country's creation. Thomson Reuters JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is the first country to have used the US-made F-35 stealth fighter in combat, the Israeli air force chief said on Tuesday in remarks carried by the military's official Twitter account.

Israeli media further quoted Major-General Amikam Norkin as saying: "We are flying the F-35 all of the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts."</s>Israel say they are the first country to use the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in combat.

Commander of the Israeli Air Force, Amikam Norkin announced Israel has already attacked using the F-35 jets twice, and on two different fronts.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been more than two decades in development, and has been a bit of a black hole sucking up the money of the countries who are part of it — it's cost US$1.5 trillion so far, more than US$150 billion over budget and 7 years behind schedule.

Australia is one of the partners in the plan, and we're set to buy a little under 100 of them — the first ones set to be operational out of Newcastle's Williamtown RAAF base later this year at a cost of around $100 million each.

Although, there are concerns the planes may already be superseded by Russian equivalents.

For more on this story, Matt Bevan joins RN Breakfast.</s>Israel has struck targets in the Middle East with the F-35 Adir stealth fighter jet twice, Israel Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin said Tuesday.



“We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East. It had become part of our operational capabilities. We are the first to attack using the F-35 in the Middle East and have already attacked twice on different fronts,” he said during the IAF Senior Air Force Conference in Herzilya.



Norkin made the comments while showing a picture of one Israeli F-35 flying over the Lebanese capital of Beirut during the day. He did not mention when the picture was taken.
Israel announces it is the first country to use the new F-35 Lightning II fighter jet in combat operations.