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Domestic Defense Contracts a Major Step in Israeli Self-Sufficiency
The logo of the Israeli defense electronics firm Elbit Systems is seen at its offices, in Haifa, Israel, Feb. 26, 2017. Photo: Reuters / Baz Ratner / File.
JNS.org – The Israeli Defense Ministry’s announcement on Jan. 7 of two major contracts with Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems, valued jointly at approximately NIS 1 billion, constitutes one of the strongest signals yet that Israel is decreasing its reliance on defense imports wherever it can.
The agreements, signed by Defense Ministry Director General Maj. Gen. (res.) Eyal Zamir and Elbit Systems President & CEO Bezhalel (“Butzi”) Machlis, are aimed at leveraging domestic Israeli industry to boost the IDF’s operational independence and force buildup capabilities.
This strategic initiative marks a critical shift as part of Israel’s Blue and White Independence Program, which seeks to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers while boosting local manufacturing capabilities, according to a Defense Ministry statement.
The first agreement, led by the Defense Procurement Directorate (DPD), involves the production of thousands of heavy air munitions for the IDF. The second agreement, overseen by the Planning Department and the Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D), entails the establishment of a national raw materials plant. This facility will feature advanced production lines for materials critical to the manufacturing of weapons, which were previously sourced primarily from abroad.
According to Zamir, these agreements will ensure an Israeli sovereign ability to make bombs and munitions “of all types,” adding, “This is a central lesson from the war that will enable the IDF to continue operating powerfully in all theaters.”
The Nagel Commission report
The necessity for domestic production was also highlighted by the Nagel Commission, which was set up to examine how the IDF could better build up its forces after the Oct. 7 mass terror attack. The commission, headed by the former head of Israel’s National Security Council Brig. Gen. Prof. Jacob Nagel, submitted a report to the government on Jan. 6 highlighting the vulnerabilities exposed during the current conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, including heavy reliance on imports for critical defense materials.
The report stated: “The war significantly challenged many long-held assumptions regarding dependence on imports (mainly from the United States, but not only). [Munition] consumption rates outpaced local production, and imports (of both products and raw material) couldn’t keep up for a range of reasons, mainly: the global arms race (especially the Russia-Ukraine war) and a higher bar for exports to Israel, due to political decisions, public pressure, and the interests of [international] decision-makers.”
The report elsewhere noted that incidents “like an embargo, a shortage in various types of weapons (especially land and air munitions), and fierce global competition over every available resource” mean Israel must become more independent when it comes to arms.
The report recommended an aggressive push for self-reliance in defense manufacturing, emphasizing hybrid strategies to maintain rapid access to critical munitions and raw materials. It called for the creation of a robust Israeli Defense Industrial Base (DIB) that integrates both civilian and military manufacturing capabilities.
An old-new approach
Israel’s pivot toward domestic defense production is not a new concept. Historically, the country began focusing on self-sufficiency after France’s 1967 arms embargo. However, the scale and urgency of the current shift are unprecedented, driven by global uncertainties and heightened Israeli military demands on multiple fronts.
Defense officials have stated in recent months that achieving a higher level of defense production autonomy allows Israel to choose its partnerships and take part in valuable strategic alliances—especially with Washington—from a position of strength, rather than dependency.
The Blue and White Independence Program was initiated in the fallout of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, when Israel found itself needing to receive hundreds of American cargo aircraft carrying ammunition, as well as resupply ships.
Alongside a focus on manufacturing, the program also prioritizes research and development of dual-purpose technologies that benefit both civilian and military applications. Examples include advanced laser systems like Rafael’s Iron Beam and quantum technologies for secure communications and rapid intelligence processing.
Challenges and benefits
The agreements with Elbit Systems are expected to provide highly significant operational benefits to the IDF. For example, the heavy air munitions deal will enhance Israel’s ability to sustain operations across multiple theaters, such as in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as to deal with threats from Iran.
Meanwhile, the new raw materials plant will reduce vulnerabilities in the supply chain, ensuring a steady flow of critical components.
However, challenges remain. Israel’s dependence on U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) casts a shadow on broader self-sufficiency, as FMF funds must be spent on American-made equipment. Additionally, scaling up domestic production requires significant government investments in infrastructure, automation and workforce training.
The agreements also have broader implications for Israel’s economy. By expanding local production lines and fostering innovation, the defense sector will create jobs and stimulate economic growth.
Machlis, Elbit’s president, noted this during the Jan. 7 signing with the Defense Ministry, stating, “This partnership contributes not only to security, but also to economic development and employment, creating livelihoods for thousands of households in Israel.”
At least one lesson from the past year and a half of war appears to have resulted in consensus among the Israeli defense establishment: Israel can never again afford to have only a small stockpile of weapons at its disposal, at any time.
The post Domestic Defense Contracts a Major Step in Israeli Self-Sufficiency first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New Zealand Prime Minister Says Israel’s Netanyahu Has ‘Lost the Plot’
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attends a press conference with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (not pictured) at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Wednesday that Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu had “lost the plot” as the country weighs whether to recognize a Palestinian state.
Luxon told reporters that the lack of humanitarian assistance, the forceful displacement of people, and the annexation of Gaza were utterly appalling and that Netanyahu had gone way too far.
“I think he has lost the plot,” added Luxon, who heads the center-right coalition government. “What we are seeing overnight, the attack on Gaza City, is utterly, utterly unacceptable.”
Luxon said earlier this week New Zealand was considering whether to recognize a Palestinian state. Close ally Australia on Monday joined Canada, the UK, and France in announcing it would do so at a UN conference in September.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached “unimaginable levels,” Britain, Canada, Australia and several of their European allies said on Tuesday, calling on Israel to allow unrestricted aid into the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Israel recently increased the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, after imposing a temporary embargo in an effort to keep them out of the hands of Hamas, which often steals the aid for its own use and sells the rest to civilians at inflated prices. While facilitating the entry of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza, Israeli officials have condemned the UN and other international aid agencies for their alleged failure to distribute supplies, noting much of the humanitarian assistance has been stalled at border crossings or stolen. According to UN data, the vast majority of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is intercepted before reaching its intended civilian recipients.
Ahead of Wednesday’s parliamentary session, a small number of protesters gathered outside New Zealand’s parliament buildings, beating pots and pans. Local media organixation Stuff reported protesters chanted “MPs grow a spine, recognize Palestine.”
On Tuesday, Greens parliamentarian Chloe Swarbrick was removed from parliament’s debating chamber after she refused to apologize for a comment insinuating government politicians were spineless for not supporting a bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes.”
Swarbrick was ordered to leave the debating chamber for a second day on Wednesday after she again refused to apologize. When she refused to leave, the government voted to suspend her.
“Sixty-eight members of this House were accused of being spineless,” House speaker Gerry Brownlee said. “There has never been a time where personal insults like that delivered inside a speech were accepted by this House and I’m not going to start accepting it.”
As Swarbrick left, she called out “free Palestine.”
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Gaza ‘Journalist’ Was a Hamas Terrorist — But the Media Ignores the Evidence
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
Outrageous reporting this week enabled terrorism to hide behind the mask of journalism, portraying an Al Jazeera reporter targeted by Israel in Gaza as a heroic figure.
In reality, it was a sea of lies that ignored clear evidence that Anas al-Sharif was, in fact, a member of Hamas.
Almost all foreign media outlets mourned the death of al-Sharif in an IDF strike on Monday, August 12, while doubting or altogether omitting hard evidence presented by the IDF proving that he was a commander of a terrorist cell in a Hamas guided rockets platoon.
Western press have eaten up Al Jazeera *cough* Hamas propaganda over Anas al-Sharif’s elimination by the IDF.
Here’s a
of some of the most egregious coverage. https://t.co/zrgp91N4EP
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 12, 2025
The IDF presented an internal Hamas document where al-Sharif was registered as a soldier and team commander, as well as a photo showing him embraced by former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack against Israel.
كما قلنا منذ البداية ورفض البعض تصديقه: لا يجلس مجالس الارهابيين إلا الإرهابي. #أنس_الشريف لم يكن صحفيًا بل إرهابيًا حمساويًا pic.twitter.com/KG6DPrlyoW
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) August 11, 2025
The media did not even bother displaying these. Instead, al-Sharif’s photo in a press vest circulated everywhere, and Israel’s claims were either ignored or undermined.
Sky News, for example, lauded al-Sharif as a “crucial reporting voice,” but IDF evidence of his Hamas affiliation was disregarded.
On social media network X, Sky News also posted a story quoting Al Jazeera’s condemnation of Al Sharif’s “assassination.” The network did not respond when Israeli former hostage Shlomi Ziv commented: “I was held by a journalist in captivity and his father was a Doctor!!!!!!!”
Meanwhile, the AP and Reuters — the world’s two leading news agencies — failed to properly report what the IDF was stating.
The AP simply lied, saying that Israel said “without producing evidence that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell. It was a claim the news organization and al-Sharif had denied” — as if a denial is a clear-cut refutation of hard evidence.
Reuters did the same, saying Israel did not disclose any evidence.
And instead of headlines such as “IDF kills Hamas terror cell leader posing as ‘Al Jazeera’ journalist,” both agencies’ headlines were one-sided.
They took the Palestinian narrative that Israel targets journalists as gospel, even though this narrative is based on the Qatari-funded network that supports Hamas and the denial that its worker has been exposed as a terrorist:
The New York Times went as far as eulogizing al-Sharif and the four other journalists who were killed in the strike, displaying Israel’s proven claims as mere accusations.
Nowhere did the Times display al-Sharif’s photo with Sinwar or the documents showing his Hamas affiliation.
This evidence was also omitted from a Washington Post headline and sub-header that made Israel look like it deliberately targets journalists:
Meanwhile, CNN produced hard-hitting videos showing al-Sharif’s Al Jazeera’s dispatches from war-torn Gaza, but without showing any of Israel’s evidence.
Ultimately, this is symptomatic of a wider problem throughout this war — whereby the media treat IDF statements with disdain while treating the claims of a terrorist organization as fact.
All these outlets, of course, failed to mention that al-Sharif conveniently ignored Gazans’ protests against Hamas throughout the war. Courage, apparently, applies only to reporting what Hamas wants the world to hear.
And almost none of them mentioned that al-Sharif was not the first terrorist who posed as a journalist in Gaza, perhaps in an attempt to hide the fact that it is a common phenomenon — from CNN’s Hassan Eslaiah to Al Jazeera’s Ismail Al Ghoul, among others.
Will the media ever doubt the Qatari network’s statements as it doubts the IDF?
Will they ever question what any journalist in Gaza says?
They can’t. Because they project their own conceptions on what it is like to cover a warzone, especially Gaza. They think that any journalist there deserves automatic solidarity and protection, instead of professional scrutiny.
With a pre-existing pro-Palestinian bias – it means the entire global media sings to Hamas’ tune.
Indeed, it proves Hamas’ evil brilliance of using the term “journalist” as a cover for terrorism. If anyone doubts it, it is an assault on the freedom of the press. Thus, the global media outcry over al-Sharif and his colleagues is a betrayal of real journalism, manipulated to demonize Israel and enable attacks against it. The outcry should have been directed against the exploitation of respected titles to promote terrorist agendas or fire rockets at innocent civilians.
Al Jazeera has already succeeded in promoting its own Hamas-friendly narrative in the aftermath of al-Sharif and his colleagues’ deaths — one where Israel is attempting to “silence voices” from revealing the truth of what is going on inside Gaza. As the IDF gears up for a potential invasion of Gaza City, we can expect to hear more of this narrative, as Al Jazeera and its fellow travelers in Western media falsely claim that Israel is attempting to cover up alleged crimes by deliberately targeting media workers.
The truth is quite the opposite. But it is unlikely to be reported.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Israeli Military Says Chief of Staff Approved ‘Main Concept’ for Attack Plan in Gaza
The new Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, March 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that chief of staff Eyal Zamir has approved the “main concept” for an attack plan in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has said it will launch a new offensive and seize control of Gaza City, which it captured shortly after the war’s outbreak in October 2023 before pulling out.