TYB
Israel Air Force prepares to train with Luftwaffe over Germany for first time
Monday exercise will be air force’s only international drill in 2020; Israeli aircraft to fly over Munich to mark 1972 Olympics massacre, and over Dachau to commemorate Holocaust
By JUDAH ARI GROSS
16 August 2020, 6:20 pm
The Israeli Air Force will take part in its first ever exercise in Germany on Monday, flying dozens of sorties with the Luftwaffe and other NATO countries’ air forces, over the course of two weeks, the military said.
This will be the only international exercise to which the IAF will send aircraft this year, in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
“This exercise has great strategic importance and has immense influence on the air force, the IDF, and the State of Israel. Israeli-German relations and the arrival of Israeli Air Force planes on German soil is a historic event,” the IAF said.
On Tuesday, the IAF is also scheduled to perform a flyover with the German Air Force, flying over the Dachau concentration camp, in memory of the Holocaust, as well as over the outskirts of Munich, to commemorate the murder of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics, the military said.
Though the Israeli Air Force has performed flybys over former Nazi concentration camps before, this will be the first time that the German Luftwaffe will participate.
We will be “flying side by side with the Israeli Air Force for the first time in our history,” Ingo Gerhartz, chief of the German Air Force, told the German press agency dpa last Thursday.
According to the Israeli military, six F-16 fighter jets, two Gulfstream G550 command-and-control planes, and two Boeing 707 planes will travel to Germany for the two-week exercise.
“Holding this exercise at this time comes from a need to continue to hold exercises in unknown landscape, as part of the importance of preserving the fitness of the air force, of being able to deal with a variety of scenarios and in order to preserve the close cooperation between the [Israeli] Air Force and foreign air forces,” the military said.
The IAF said the exercise would include simulated dog-fights, air-to-ground attacks, advanced surface-to-air missile threats and operations behind enemy lines.
The air force’s flyby over Dachau and then Munich — known as “Memory for the Future” — will include the Israeli Gulfstream plane and F-16 fighter jets, along with two German Eurofighter jets.
The flyby will be led by IAF chief Amikam Norkin, who will fly the lead Gulfstream with his German counterpart Gerhartz; and the first female commander of an IAF air squadron, who can only be identified by her rank and first initial of her Hebrew name, Lt. Col. “Gimel.”
Following the flyby, a joint memorial ceremony will be held in Dachau, which will be attended by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff, Norkin, Gerhartz and other attaches.
An IAF officer whose grandfather survived the Dachau concentration camp will speak at the ceremony, which will be broadcast live on the IDF’s social media channels.
Following the Dachau event, air force commanders Norkin and Gerhartz will hold a smaller memorial ceremony at the monument to the 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists in the 1972 Munich Olympics, the IDF said.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-air-force-prepares-to-train-with-luftwaffe-over-germany-for-first-time/
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