Photos show Israel's F-15I Ra'am 'Thunder' fighter jets used in strikes against Iran's nuclear program

The Israeli Air Force is using F-15I Ra'am fighter jets to target Iran's nuclear program.
The Israeli variant of Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle planes can fly up to 2,765 miles without refueling.
The State Department approved the sale of 50 new F-15I planes to Israel in August 2024.
Israel's fleet of F-15I warplanes, a modified version of the Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle, can fly long distances while carrying thousands of pounds of weapons.
Israel has used F-15I planes in strikes against Iran's nuclear program, which Israel Defense Forces Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir called an "existential threat."
The planes are part of the Israeli Air Force 's fleet of advanced fighter jets acquired from the US and enhanced with military technology manufactured in Israel.
Here's a look at the cutting-edge military aircraft.
F-15I Ra'am fighter jets are Israeli versions of Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle planes.
Following the 1991 Gulf War, during which Iraq fired Scud missiles into Israeli cities, Israel acquired the long-range planes in order to bolster its air defense system.
The Israeli Air Force considered an array of models before ordering 25 F-15I planes for $2.4 billion in 1994, The New York Times reported.
The first F-15I planes arrived in Israel in 1998.
Israel's then-minister of defense, Itzchak Mordechai, formally accepted the planes in a ceremony at Boeing's plant in St. Louis in November 1997. The first two F-15I jets then arrived in Israel in January 1998.
"From a purely technological standpoint, the F-15I is a masterpiece. It will provide the qualitative edge Israel requires to preserve peace," Boeing's then-CEO, Phil Condit, said in a statement in 1997.
The Israeli Air Force named its F-15I variant "Ra'am" meaning "Thunder" in Hebrew.
The planes were also customized with decals of the Star of David, a six-pointed Jewish symbol that appears on the Israeli flag.
Israel added its own computer system, terrain-mapping radar, and display and sight helmet, or DASH, to the planes.
Each aircraft can carry 18,000 pounds of fuel and weapons, The National Interest reported.
F-15I fighter jets can fly a maximum of 4,450 kilometers, or 2,765 miles, without refueling, according to the Israeli Air Force.
The planes can also be refueled while airborne, enabling them to fly even longer distances.
They can reach speeds exceeding Mach 2.5, or around 1,918 miles per hour.
In August 2024, the State Department approved the sale of 50 new F-15I planes and upgrade kits for Israel's existing fleet totaling $20 billion.
The sale also included tank ammunition, mortars, and military vehicles. Israel won't actually receive the new F-15Is until 2029, the Associated Press reported.
Israel's counteroffensive airstrikes and military operations in Gaza following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, have resulted in widespread Palestinian fatalities, increasing scrutiny of US military aid to Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces said it used over 150 fighter jets to target Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon in September.
In September, Israel launched an airstrike on Hezbollah's central headquarters in Beirut that killed Hassan Nasrallah, who had led the Iran-backed militant group since 1992.
The Israel Defense Forces also targeted Hezbollah's military infrastructure across southern Lebanon and launched a ground offensive.
The Israeli Air Force shared photos of F-15I fighter jets loaded with what appeared to be 2,000-pound BLU-109 bombs known as "bunker busters" following the airstrikes.
Iran responded by launching a missile attack on Israel. US warships helped intercept the Iranian missiles, and White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Iran's attack was "ineffective."
In June, Israel struck nuclear and military sites in Iran with over 200 fighter jets, including F-15I Ra'am planes.
Beginning June 13, the Israel Defense Forces have bombarded Iran's nuclear facilities, military sites, and weapons manufacturing capabilities in an effort to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon and launching further attacks.
Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, some of which have evaded Israel's air defenses and damaged residential and commercial buildings.
Photos released by the Israel Defense Forces show F-15I Ra'am jets preparing to strike Iran, as well as the involvement of Israel's F-35I Adir stealth fighter jets. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the Israeli Air Force had conducted over 600 aerial refuelings since the beginning of the strikes, dubbed Operation Rising Lion.

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Newsweek

27 minutes ago

• Newsweek

Is Donald Trump Considering Tactical Nukes Against Iran? What We Know

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Trump administration has not taken anything "off the table," including the use of tactical nuclear weapons, if it decides to take military action against the underground Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, Fox News reported, citing a White House official. It followed a report in The Guardian that the president "is not considering using a tactical nuclear weapon on Fordow." The Pentagon declined comment to Newsweek, instead referring to a statement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said on June 16 that he had directed "the deployment of additional capabilities" to the Middle East. "Protecting U.S. forces is our top priority and these developments are intended to enhance our defensive posture in the region," Hegseth said. President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Oval Office of the White House on June 18, 2025 (left) and a retired U.S. B61 thermonuclear gravity bomb, a type of tactical nuclear weapon still... President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Oval Office of the White House on June 18, 2025 (left) and a retired U.S. B61 thermonuclear gravity bomb, a type of tactical nuclear weapon still in service, shown in 2021. More BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Jon G. Fuller/GETTY/AP Why It Matters No nuclear weapon has been deployed in war since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, and any use of such weapons against an Iranian facility would be extremely controversial in the U.S. and worldwide. On Thursday, the White House said Trump would decide "within the next two weeks" whether the U.S. will join Israeli military action that began on June 13 against Iranian nuclear sites. Israel claims that Iran is working toward building a nuclear weapon, while Tehran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. What To Know One of Iran's most important nuclear sites is the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, which is believed to be buried about 80 meters deep into the side of a mountain. Experts have suggested Israel doesn't have any conventional bombs capable of destroying the site, though on Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "we have the capability" to "hit all of their nuclear facilities." Unlike Israel, the U.S. possesses 30,000-pound GBU-57s "bunker buster" bombs that are specifically designed to reach targets buried deep beneath the surface and can be deployed by B-2 Spirit heavy bombers. On Wednesday, citing people "familiar with the deliberations," The Guardian reported that Trump "does not appear to be fully convinced" that GBU-57s bombs can reach the Fordow facility. It said the effectiveness of GBU-57s against the Fordow facility was "a topic of deep contention" within the Pentagon, citing two defense officials, with some reportedly believing that only a tactical nuclear weapon could destroy the site. It added that Trump was "not considering" the option and said it hadn't been presented by Hegseth or Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine. Tactical nuclear weapons are smaller than strategic nuclear weapons and are designed to be deployed for limited strikes or on the battlefield, rather than against whole cities. The U.S. maintains a large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, though none have ever been used in combat. Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said she was told by a White House official that The Guardian report was "false." According to Heinrich, the official "has no doubt about the efficacy of bunker busters in eliminating the site at Fordow" adding they also denied "that any options [including tactical nukes] have been taken off the table." Israel has been attacking Iranian military and nuclear sites since June 13. On Thursday, the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists said that at least 639 people had been killed in the attacks, though the figures have not been independently verified. In response, Iran has fired ballistic missiles at Israel, killing 24 civilians, according to Israeli authorities. On Friday the British, French and German foreign ministers were slated to meet their Iranian counterpart in Geneva, Switzerland, in a bid to resolve the conflict. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that "a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution." What People Are Saying Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich: "There have been a lot of headlines this afternoon including one from The Guardian that claims that the U.S. military has doubts about whether the 'bunker-buster' bombs could get the job done, further claiming only a tactical nuke maybe could finish it and it further stated that the president is not considering a tactical nuke, that it was not one of the options presented to him. "I was just told by a top official here that none of that report is true, that none of the options are off the table and the U.S. military is very confident 'bunker busters' could get the job done at Fordow." Fox News host Jesse Watters, on Thursday: "The Guardian reported Trump was getting cold feet worried about the effectiveness of 'bunker busters' and not willing to use tactical nukes. But the White House tells Fox that's not true, everything's on the table, even tactical nukes." Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, on Friday, referring to possible U.S. tactical nuke deployment, according to Russia's TASS news agency: "This would be a catastrophic there are so many speculations that, in fact, it's impossible to comment on them." What Happens Next It is not yet known whether the U.S. will launch strikes against Iran and, if so, what weaponry it will use. Deploying a tactical nuclear bomb, the first use of a nuclear weapon since World War II, would be a controversial move.

Yahoo

27 minutes ago

• Yahoo

Yemen's Houthis mull how they can help ally Iran against Israel

As the war between Israel and Iran continues, Yemen's Houthi rebels say they are coordinating with Tehran. The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have since 2023 launched attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is support for Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis are also a close ally of Iran, and now they say that their latest attacks are on behalf of the 'Palestinian and Iranian peoples', according to the Telegram account of Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree, who added that the Yemeni group were coordinating with 'the operations carried out by the Iranian army against the criminal Israeli enemy'. On Sunday, two days after Israel first attacked Iran in the early hours of June 13, the Houthis announced that they had targeted Israel. In a televised address, Saree said the group fired several ballistic missiles at Jaffa. The Houthis are timing their attacks with the Iranians, according to Hussain Albukhaiti, a pro-Houthi political commentator. The Houthis are launching missiles 'after Iran launched its missiles', Albukhaiti told Al Jazeera. 'This way the Zionist settlers [Israelis] keep going back and forth to their shelters so they can live a small fraction of the fear they caused the Palestinian people in Gaza.' The Houthi attacks are essentially a continuation of their previous periodic missile and drone attacks on Israel. The Israelis have mostly been able to intercept the attacks but some have gotten through, most notably an attack in early May on Ben Gurion airport that injured six people and led to a suspension of flights. But the Houthi attacks have also had another consequence for Israeli defences, according to Yemen expert Nicholas Brumfield. 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Any attacks from the Houthis would likely make Saudi Arabia abandon that groups in Yemen have been watching events carefully over the past few months, as they sense an opportunity with the initial US campaign against the Houthis, and now the weakening of the Houthis' principal ally, Iran. 'The most [the Houthis are] capable of doing is continuing symbolic attacks on Israel or potentially restarting activity in the Red Sea,' Raiman Al-Hamdani, an independent Yemen analyst, told Al Jazeera. 'But doing so could provoke a renewed military response from the US, Israel, and the UK, which might weaken their position domestically and open space for anti-Houthi groups to exploit any resulting instability.' However, analysts say that few of the groups that oppose the Houthis, including the Yemeni government, are in a position to take and effectively govern territory from the Houthis. And, should those groups mobilise, the Houthis would likely respond, Albukhaiti said. Houthi forces could target any domestic opponents through 'oil and gas fields and platforms' as well as the 'airports and water distillation plants' of the countries he said backed the groups, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Hill

42 minutes ago

• The Hill

What happens if Iran falls? Nothing good.

Since Israel launched its campaign against Iran, the whispers of regime change have swelled into roars. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now openly entertain the possibility of removing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Western press, as usual, salivates. Opinion writers speak of 'freedom,' of 'liberation,' of 'a new democratic dawn.' They should know better. We all should. This isn't the first time America has overthrown a government in Tehran. In 1953, the CIA helped orchestrate the ousting of Mohammad Mossadegh — a democratically elected prime minister who had the audacity to nationalize Iran's oil. That coup installed the Shah, a brutal monarch who fed dissidents into the meat grinder of SAVAK, his secret police. Torture chambers, disappearances, censorship — the entire Cold War authoritarian playbook was handed to Tehran on U.S. government stationery. That regime change led not to liberty, but to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In short: the last time America meddled, it turned a secular democracy into a theocratic furnace. We have made this mistake before, and we are about to make it again. Let's not pretend the fall of the Islamic Republic would yield some Instagram-filtered liberal utopia. That fantasy is for people who read Foreign Affairs magazine like it's a Marvel comic book. The reality? Chaos. Deep, tribal, sectarian chaos. A power vacuum that would make Iraq look smart. If the Iranian regime collapses, the dominoes won't fall politely. Iran isn't just a nation — it's a spider at the center of a vast web of proxy forces and regional entanglements. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria — what happens to them when the spider dies? Do they disband? More likely, they go rogue. Unleashed, uncoordinated and angry. They won't sit for peace talks — they'll torch what's left of the map. And these groups aren't ragtag militias. They are disciplined, battle-hardened and ideologically committed. With Tehran gone, they would no longer be restrained by any centralized strategy. They would become freelance war machines, pursuing old vendettas with new ferocity — armed, funded and furious. What about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? They are not going to hang up their boots and go quietly into retirement. They are a state within a state, with their own army, economy and ideology. They run ports, banks, and oil fields. They have more institutional muscle than many small nations. If the regime fractures, these war-hardened ideologues will carve out fiefdoms. Think Taliban with oil money. Think Lebanon's civil war, but on steroids. And unlike the Taliban, they don't aim for isolation — they export chaos. Now imagine ten different Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps offshoots, each with its own turf war, trying to seize Iran's critical infrastructure while gunning down ideological rivals. That's not liberation. That's Mogadishu, possibly with nukes on the menu. And then there's the nuclear wildcard. A destabilized Iran, fractured between militias and factions, becomes the world's most terrifying flea market: ballistic missiles for sale, enriched uranium changing hands with no adult supervision. Intelligence services across the globe would scramble to secure loose weapons, only to find they have already vanished into the black market. You think ISIS with a truck bomb is bad? Try Hezbollah with a suitcase nuke. Try a warlord with enriched uranium looking to make a name. The dream of a free Iran could birth a nightmare of a dozen failed mini-republics, each with its own flag, their own grudge and their own appetite for vengeance. Let us not forget what happens when Washington gets high on its own mythology. Regime change never ends with ticker tape and smiling schoolgirls holding flowers. It ends with boots in sand, contractors feeding at the trough, and entire cities flattened because someone in D.C. thought history was a choose-your-own-adventure book. Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan — how many more lessons do we need? How many broken nations do we walk away from before admitting we are not exporters of democracy but arsonists in suits? And those arsonists still don't carry water. They still don't rebuild. They hold press conferences. They slap flags on blown-up convoys. And when it all fails — again — they blame 'tribalism' or 'regional instability' instead of their own god complex. And what of the wider Middle East? Saudi Arabia will see an opening to expand influence, while Turkey eyes northern Iran like a hawk. The Gulf States, already teetering on paranoia, will bankroll private armies and surveillance empires to keep the revolution from spilling over. The Sunni-Shia divide won't heal — it'll erupt. Not a Cold War. A regional wildfire. Religious factions with tanks. Nationalist militias with drones. Oil fields turned battlegrounds. Refugee crises so large they dwarf Syria. All because the West once again mistook force for foresight. Meanwhile, the people of Iran — those who've suffered under theocracy and deserve better — will get caught in the crossfire of empires and ideologues. Again. The same people who rose up in the streets for women's rights, for secularism, for freedom of speech — shot in the back by snipers under Khamenei — will now be crushed between collapsing regimes and foreign opportunists. They'll be the first to die, and the last to be remembered. The truth is ugly, but it must be said: toppling Khamenei won't liberate Iran. It will unhinge it. The Ayatollah's fall, however deserved, would not be a curtain call; it would be an opening act for something far more brutal. Revolution, after all, is rarely the final chapter. It's the prelude to civil war. And civil war in a country with roughly 90 million people, ballistic missiles, and regional reach isn't a footnote. It's a global event. The West doesn't need more regime changes. It needs a regime change of thought. The idea that we can shape the world in our image with drones and platitudes has led to an era of smoldering ruins and refugee camps. This isn't just hubris; it's homicide dressed up as humanitarianism. And the victims aren't dictators. They are doctors, shopkeepers, little girls clutching backpacks instead of rifles. If Iran falls, it won't be freedom that rises. It will be fire, and we lit the match. John Mac Ghlionn is a writer and researcher who explores culture, society and the impact of technology on daily life.