Israeli Air Force
aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces
The Israeli Air Force (IAF; Hebrew: זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל, romanized: Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, lit. 'Air and Space Arm', commonly known as חֵיל הָאֲוִיר, Kheil HaAvir, "Air Corps") operates as the aerial and space warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence. As of May 2026, Aluf Omer Tischler has been serving as the Air Force commander.
The Israeli Air Force was established using commandeered or donated civilian aircraft and obsolete and surplus World War II combat aircraft. Eventually, more aircraft were procured, including Boeing B-17s, Bristol Beaufighters, de Havilland Mosquitoes and P-51D Mustangs. The Israeli Air Force played an important part in Operation Kadesh, Israel's part in the 1956 Suez Crisis, dropping paratroopers at the Mitla Pass. On June 5, 1967, the first day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli Air Force performed Operation Focus, debilitating the opposing Arab air forces and attaining air supremacy for the remainder of the war.
Shortly after the end of the Six-Day War, Egypt initiated the War of Attrition, and the Israeli Air Force performed repeated bombings of strategic targets deep within enemy territory. When the Yom Kippur War broke out on October 6, 1973, Egyptian and Syrian advances forced the IAF to abandon detailed plans for the destruction of enemy air defences. Forced to operate under the missile and anti-aircraft artillery threats, the close air support it provided allowed Israeli troops on the ground to stem the tide and eventually go on the offensive.
The public source identifies “Israeli Air Force” as aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Israeli, Force and aerial.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q462211. VIAF identifies the subject as 134803258. The Library of Congress control number is n83008989. None of the 4 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1948, 2026, 1956 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Israeli Air Force” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.