Israeli military equipment that could be affected by a French embargo

Five days after Iran's latest massive Iranian attack on Israel, Emmanuel Macron has proposed an arms embargo on Israel.

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This is not the first time that France has imposed an arms embargo on Israel. Charles de Gaulle already imposed an embargo three days before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, while Egypt was massing troops to attack Israel. As was the case then, imposing arms embargoes on a democratic country harassed by its enemies, in addition to being morally questionable, is something that will only contribute to worsening the already not exactly good relations between France and Israel, especially while France sells weapons to Lebanon knowing that they could end up in the hands of Hezbollah terrorists.

It should be remembered that the French arms embargo of 1967 led Israel to avoid military dependence on France. This situation changed only slightly under François Mitterrand (1981-1995), the first French president to visit Israel.

In fact, to date the only military equipment of French origin operated by Israel is from that era: the Eurocopter AS565 Panther, a helicopter manufactured at the time by the French company Aerospatiale. Prior to these helicopters, Israel had operated several Aerospatiale SA366G Dauphin helicopters purchased from the US (they had previously been operated by the US Coast Guard).

After a good experience with the Dauphin, and taking advantage of the good rapport with Mitterrand, the Israeli Air Force acquired five AS565MA Panthers in 1996, nicknamed "Atalef" in Israel. One ​​of these helicopters was lost in an accident on January 3, 2022, killing both of its crew members: Lt. Col. Erez Sachyani and Maj. Chen Fogel.

The remaining four Panthers are operated from Israeli Navy ships, but assigned to the IAF's 193 Squadron. They were initially purchased as the AS565MA, an unarmed version dedicated to maritime patrol, search and rescue. Currently, the Israeli Panthers are the AS565SA version, armed and with anti-submarine capability. They typically operate from the flight decks of the three Sa'ar 5-class corvettes.

These helicopters are still used primarily for search and rescue operations, and are Israel’s only aircraft capable of locating missing persons at sea at night. However, these helicopters are already on the verge of being retired from service, as Israel purchased eight Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawks in 2015 to replace them. Delivery is scheduled for 2024.

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Main photo: U.S. Navy.