{"id":602795,"date":"2026-09-01T17:18:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/602795\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:18:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:18:35","slug":"israels-sixth-submarine-departs-germany-in-navy-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/602795\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s sixth submarine departs Germany in Navy upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IDF and the Defense Ministry on Tuesday night announced that the final of six submarines<\/a> manufactured by Germany as part of a long-ago signed deal is on its way to Israel.<\/p>\n

Israeli Navy Chief Vice Admiral Eyal Harel and German Naval Chief Jan Christian Kaack, along with other top Israeli and German officials, attended a send-off ceremony for the submarine<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

In February of this year, Elbit Systems issued a strikingly vague statement about the start of joint work in Israel with the German maritime vessel manufacturing giant TKMS (the successor company to an expanded ThyssenKrupp and the producer of this submarine) to produce “structural components” for future submarines.<\/p>\n

As part of the cooperation, Elbit said at the time that it would establish a new manufacturing facility for underwater GRP (Glass Reinforced Polyester) components for submarines.<\/p>\n

Yoram Shmuely, General Manager of the Aerospace Division at Elbit Systems, said, \u201cThis cooperation will expand local manufacturing capabilities and serve as an anchor for global activity in the underwater domain.”<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Israeli Navy unveils the new INS \u201cDrakon\u201d submarine at the German Naval Yards Holdings in Kiel, Germany, November 12, 2024 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)<\/p>\n

In December 2025, as Germany prepared to deploy its Arrow air defense system<\/a>, bought from Israel, for the first time, the Israeli Defense Ministry made new progress on the German-built submarines in Berlin, The Jerusalem Post reported at the time.<\/p>\n

What can the German ‘Dragon’ submarines do?\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to foreign reports, the submarines are able to deliver nuclear weapons. Multiple foreign publications have reported that Israeli submarines are part of a triad of nuclear deterrence that Israel possesses, along with land-based and air-based weapons<\/p>\n

During Defense Ministry Director-general Amir Baram and other senior defense officials\u2019 stay in Germany, they made new progress regarding the ongoing submarine deals, which have unique offensive and also defensive capabilities.<\/p>\n

Though Israel has never publicly admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, former prime ministers like Ehud Olmert and others have, at times, slipped up and alluded to the weapons program.<\/p>\n

Besides the offensive dimensions, the IDF made unusual disclosures during the Israel-Hamas War about the involvement of submarines in operations against Iran, Yemen, and Syria, including operations that assisted with Israel\u2019s defense against aerial threats.<\/p>\n

Movement on both the submarines and the Arrow, along with new levels of Israeli and German cooperation in other cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), signaled in December 2025 that the special relationship between Berlin and Jerusalem remained despite disagreements over the Gaza war<\/p>\n

In November 2024, then IDF Naval Chief Admiral David Saar Salame named the new \u201cDragon\u201d submarine at a ceremony in Germany.<\/p>\n

At the time, Israel was expected to receive the submarine in late 2025.<\/p>\n

The navy has carried out surveillance and struck Hezbollah targets in a number of areas deeper into Lebanon than where IDF ground forces have progressed, given that those forces are limited to southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

In addition, the navy has provided constant defense to Israel\u2019s maritime borders and to its strategic sites, such as its natural gas rigs.<\/p>\n

This has included clandestine operations that can reveal Hezbollah and other countries\u2019 plans to threaten or prepare to fire on Israel, but before they actually fire, in order to enable the air force to preemptively strike such enemy locations.<\/p>\n

One area which has been especially challenging has been defending against Houthi attacks on Eilat, given that when the navy helps shoot down threats, it must contend with an extremely small zone of defense so as not to invade Egyptian or Jordanian airspace \u2013 or it would need to coordinate with those countries if necessary.<\/p>\n

The six-submarine deal dates back many years and has been part of the navy’s strategic modernization effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The IDF and the Defense Ministry on Tuesday night announced that the final of six submarines manufactured by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[97833,170,86,85,46,26342,43,8404],"class_list":["post-602795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-elbit-systems","tag-germany","tag-hezbollah","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-navy","tag-news","tag-submarine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}