{"id":3610,"date":"2026-07-16T14:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/3610\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T14:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:51:11","slug":"israel-to-produce-its-own-jdam-bombs-en-masse-within-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/3610\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel to produce its own JDAM bombs en masse within two years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel should be able to produce its own Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs en masse within two years, which will revolutionize its warfare capabilities<\/a>, The Jerusalem Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Under orders from former defense minister Yoav Gallant and with recommendations from the commission of Jacob Turkel, Israel started producing more of its own bombs in late 2024 after decades of relying much more on the US for such items, especially during a crisis.<\/p>\n

This came after the Biden administration slapped a partial arms freeze<\/a> on certain bombs to Israel in May 2024 over differences related to the IDF’s invasion of Rafah in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The initial idea was for Israel to become more independent in producing so-called dumb bombs.<\/p>\n

But that was only the beginning of a process to make Israel more independent in weapons production, especially regarding munitions, which accelerated and expanded much more in 2025-2026, and eventually also focused on producing smarter bombs, like JDAMs.<\/p>\n

\"ElbitElbit munitions (credit: ELBIT SYSTEMS)JDAMs convert bombs into precision-guided munitions<\/p>\n

The JDAM is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or “dumb bombs”, into precision-guided munitions (PGMs) which can be used in all weather conditions, including those where using dumb bombs would not be effective.<\/p>\n

On January 7, 2025, the Defense Ministry signed two major agreements with Elbit Systems<\/a>, totaling approximately NIS 1 billion, as part of a strategic effort to strengthen the IDF\u2019s self-sufficiency and operational readiness both in munitions and in raw materials.<\/p>\n

In November 2025, the Defense Ministry, where Amir Baram had moved to the position of director-general from serving as IDF deputy chief by March 2025, announced that to date, over 120,000 tons of military equipment, munitions, weapons systems, and protective gear were transferred to Israel via 1,000 aircraft and approximately 150 maritime vessels, mostly from the US.<\/p>\n

Baram declared that the ministry over the past two years “has led a tremendous effort to ensure the supply of weapons, equipment, technology, and everything required to enable the IDF to fight and prevail. The 1,000th aircraft that landed today represents another crucial link in the strategic supply chain for the State of Israel.”<\/p>\n

He said it was critical to pursue “two parallel tracks: on one hand, strengthening Israel’s defense production base to ensure manufacturing independence, and on the other hand, strengthening cooperation and political and defense relations with our allies around the world, to maintain such an airlift, both in routine and emergencies, and to further strengthen the IDF’s capabilities.”<\/p>\n

In January of this year, the Defense Ministry announced it had issued a multi-year order for air munitions manufactured by Elbit Systems, valued at approximately NIS 570 million.<\/p>\n

Baram stated at the time, “This air munitions deal joins a series of multi-year force-building agreements currently being advanced across air, land, and additional domains. These agreements will enable inventory replenishment and procurement for years ahead, while investing in the expansion of our defense industrial base.”<\/p>\n

“This will enhance the IDF’s readiness for a challenging security decade, support increased defense exports, and strengthen the economic resilience of Israel’s defense industries and the broader Israeli economy,” he said.<\/p>\n

Munitions production ramped up during war with Lebanon, Iran<\/p>\n

In March, mid-war with Iran and Lebanon, Baram announced an additional ramping up of munitions production with Elbit, \u201cThe central focus of the Ministry of Defense\u2026is aerial munitions. Months of preparation and early readiness have enabled the IDF to operate with virtually no constraints in Iran and Lebanon.”<\/p>\n

“At the same time, we are now working to replenish all munitions expended in order to be prepared for any scenario. The decisions we made to expand and accelerate production lines in Israel before the operation will now allow us to take production rates to the next level,\u201d Baram stated.<\/p>\n

He complimented Israel’s “distinctive integration between the IDF, the Defense Ministry, and the defense industries that enables the rapid translation of operational needs and battlefield lessons into real-time modifications and upgrades, creating exceptionally fast feedback loops,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

While these statements do not divide up which funds went to JDAMs, which to dumb bombs, and when, the continuous rounds of Israel pouring in additional funds to the weapons independence issue leave room for an emphasis on different weapons at different times.<\/p>\n

Where did Israel get the money for all of these rapid increases in homegrown munitions?<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Post has learned that the Defense Ministry did not have enough money to pay for the rapid increases in munitions production at some point, as well as for increasing Arrow 3 interceptor production.<\/p>\n

Fights with the Finance Ministry over the need to increase the budget delayed funds or left insufficient funds.<\/p>\n

Defense Ministry increased Arrow production funds through sales to Germany<\/p>\n

In fact, the only way that the Defense Ministry had enough money to jump-start Arrow production was by the creative and quick use of an influx of additional billions of dollars from a second and new deal to sell the Arrow to Germany.<\/a><\/p>\n

These funds both enabled increasing the development of locally produced munitions and exponentially increased the number of Arrow interceptors produced by a factor of between two and four times.<\/p>\n

Some Israeli media outlets criticized Israel for sending Arrow interceptors to Germany mid-war when Israel was carefully budgeting the use of its remaining interceptor supply, and at times was using David’s Sling to try to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

Despite the criticism, the Post understands that only a very small percentage of Arrow interceptors went to Germany.<\/p>\n

Effectively, this means the deal gave Israel several dozen or more interceptors over certain critical periods that it would not have had absent the deal with Germany, and this is true even after the small number of Arrows that it sent to Berlin during that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel should be able to produce its own Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs en masse within two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14,116,702,879,90,885,1063,2273],"class_list":["post-3610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defence-industry","tag-defense-industry","tag-defense-ministry","tag-elbit-systems","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-weapons","tag-yoav-gallant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}