First U.S. weapons to Israel left from Dover Air Force Base. More have been sent since
The first shipment of U.S. weapons to Israel left Dover Air Force Base about an hour before dawn on Oct. 10.
It had only been a few days since Hamas’ attack, but the U.S. response was swift. Officials had decided that a commercial air cargo group with planes in Israel would send an airliner from Tel Aviv.
Upon landing in Dover, it would be quickly packed with “advanced weaponry” before heading back to Israel. In actuality, the plane was in Delaware for a little more than seven hours.
By the time the Boeing 747 arrived at Nevatim Airbase, located less than 50 miles from Gaza in Israel’s Negev desert, it was almost midnight in the country. Several men in the Israel Defense Force’s signature olive green fatigues unloaded the weapons onto cargo pallet trailers, while others directed an ATV-type vehicle to pull the trailers away.
Video posted to the Israel Ministry of Defense's X account captured it all.
Less than 8 hours later, the aircraft was headed back to Dover to pick up another shipment of "advanced ammunition designed to allow significant strikes and to prepare for additional scenarios," an IDF spokesperson told Israeli newspaper Haaretz in October.
Via email, the agency declined comment for this story.
In the eight weeks since these back-to-back trips, the plane has made seven additional flights from Dover to Nevatim, according to flight logs reviewed by Delaware Online/The News Journal. Prior to the Oct. 7 attack, this particular aircraft had only flown to a U.S. air base one other time in the last three years – to Dover in May.
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While neither the U.S. Department of Defense, the IDF or the Israel Ministry of Defense has said whether more flights from the base are planned, given the relative frequency of these trips – the most recent flight left Dover on Nov. 25 – coupled with President Joe Biden’s request for additional aid to Israel, it’s likely this plane will be back in Delaware.
But why Dover, and why not use military aircraft?
More than its morgue
Though Dover Air Force Base is perhaps most well-known by the public for operating the largest Department of Defense morgue – which is also the sole port mortuary in the U.S. – this is far from its only role.
The base, among serving other functions, is home to the military’s largest aerial port, known as the Super Port. Through it travels mail, passengers and cargo to “support operations, such as worldwide humanitarian efforts, exercises, contingencies and emergencies, as directed by the President of the United States and the Department of Defense,” a Dover air base spokesperson said.
The base is also the Department of Defense’s largest foreign military sales port, or the port where the U.S. sells “defense articles and services” to other countries and international organizations. Long before Hamas’ attack, the base had been used to provide Israel with armaments.
Despite its current role, Dover Air Force Base wasn’t always a transport hub.
In 1940, the city of Dover approved an offer by the federal government to build the base. When it opened in 1941, it was known as Dover Army Airfield.
While the base only operated for about five years before closing in 1946, it was well-used during that time. Military officials conducted secret rocket tests and trained fighter pilots there. In 1943, the Pentagon began sending planes from the airfield to patrol for submarines.
Though the facility closed shortly after the end of WWII, it was reactivated within a few years and in 1952, became an airlift base.
Today, hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo – whether it be armaments destined for Ukraine or Israel or medical supplies and food headed to natural disaster-wrought locales – are processed through and flown from Dover.
A need for more aircraft
Though Delaware’s air base is the largest in the U.S., it’s far from the only locale that’s used for transport.
Every 2.8 minutes, a Department of Defense airplane or one operated by a contractor departs an airport worldwide, said Scott Ross, spokesperson for the U.S. Transportation Command.
The military command, known as TRANSCOM, provides air, land, and sea transportation for the Department of Defense, both through military and commercial equipment.
These planes don’t just carry cargo, though. They are “doing everything from delivering troops for rotation in and out of different places to support for the President when he flies to congressional lifts,” Ross said.
Thus, between the daily volume of cargo and passengers who need transporting, commercial carriers are key to Department of Defense operations.
When it comes to armaments – which comprise only a fraction of the Department of Defense’s cargo transport – certain equipment must go on military planes, Ross said. He did not provide specifics.
Yet the majority of munitions and other “dangerous goods” transported by air are flown by commercial airliners, he said.
To illustrate his point, Ross pointed to a graphic published on the command’s website that details U.S. aid to Ukraine and other European allies between Jan. 21 and Nov. 27 of this year. About 80% of the items, which number in the millions, were brought over via commercial carrier, Ross said.
In large part, this is because the Air Force has a finite number of transport aircraft. (Ross estimated about 220 C-17s and less than 60 C-5s currently. In 2022, there were less than 280 C-130s, about half as many as three decades ago.)
Of these 550 or so planes, some are grounded daily for routine maintenance while others are down due to unscheduled repairs. Still more are used for training.
Others must also be reserved for transport to and from dangerous areas, such as when the U.S. was evacuating people from Afghanistan in 2021.
In that instance, a combination of military and commercial airliners were used, Ross said. The commercial planes were staged at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, while Air Force equipment was used to land in Kabul.
Passengers were then taken from Kabul to Qatar, from which they were transported by commercial plane to their final destination.
While this was a unique situation – and not one that occurs particularly often, Ross said – there are “a lot of different complex decisions” that are made when determining how to transport cargo and passengers.
“The simple answer is, (commercial contracts) give us more options,” Ross said. “It gives us the capacity that we would not otherwise have got.”
The first – and subsequent – weapons shipment to Israel
U.S. military officials called the meeting soon after learning of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
It hadn’t yet been determined exactly what aid the U.S. would provide to Israel – that would depend, in part, on what the country’s needs were – but U.S. Transportation Command officials knew they’d be relying on the various commercial cargo carriers they contract with.
Soon, cargo carrier executives had traveled to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, located less than 20 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. There, they were briefed on what kind of conditions Israel was operating in – and by extension, what they’d be facing – and what the Department of Defense thought it might have to prepare for.
Not long after this meeting, the Pentagon solicited bids for munitions transport, which Challenge Group – one of the many cargo companies the Department of Defense contracts with – won.
By 5:33 p.m. Israeli time on Oct. 9, about two-and-a-half days after Hamas militants ravaged kibbutzim and other locales in southern Israel, the plane from Tel Aviv was on its way.
While officials have largely declined, publicly, to provide specifics on weaponry, that same day, a U.S. official told reporters the Israeli government had asked for missile interceptors, precision-guided weapons and artillery rounds.
The official also said the Pentagon was working with defense contractors to expedite some of the orders.
Hours later, around 10 p.m. Eastern time, Challenge Group landed its plane in Dover. The next morning, just after 5:30 a.m., the aircraft was again airborne – this time, packed with what would become the first of many munition shipments bound for Israel.
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