300px, A Negev Squadron F-16I at Red Flag in 2009 253 Squadron of the

Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; , commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial and space warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Indep ...

, also known as the Negev Squadron, is an F-16I fighter squadron based at Ramon Airbase.

History

On 27 July 1976 the squadron was founded at Hatzor Airbase and were assigned IAI Neshers. In 4 June 1978, the 253 Squadron was told to retrain on the

Dassault Mirage III The Dassault Mirage III () is a family of single/dual-seat, single-engine, fighter aircraft developed and manufactured by French aircraft company Dassault Aviation. It was the first Western European combat aircraft to exceed Mach 2 in horizont ...

aircraft. Following the signage of the

Egypt–Israel peace treaty The Egypt–Israel peace treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords. The Egypt–Israel treaty was signed by Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, Prime Minist ...

, Israeli forces withdrew and had to abandon established bases in the area. The squadron's Mirages were relocated to a reserve squadron, with the 253 Squadron awaiting conversion to the F-16B ''Netz,'' later becoming the IDF's third F-16B squadron. On October 1981, he squadron deployed to Ramat David Airbase, before being transferred to Ramon Airbase in early 1982. The squadron's aircraft were equipped with

guided bomb A guided bomb (also known as a smart bomb, guided bomb unit, or GBU) is a precision-guided munition designed to achieve a smaller circular error probable (CEP). The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the retroactive renaming of ...

s beginning in 1994. The bombs saw operational use on 3 August 1995 during Operation Iron Eagle, with two of these guided bombs striking an observation tower manned by insurgents. The squadron also participated in the Second Lebanon War. In March 2018, Israel's government confirmed that 253 Squadron, along with 69 and 119 Squadrons, took part and successfully completed

Operation Orchard Operation Outside the Box, also known as Operation Orchard, was an Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear reactor, referred to as the Al Kibar site (also referred to in IAEA documents as Dair Alzour), in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria, w ...

on 6 September 2007, destroying the nuclear installations of Syria constructed with the help of North Korea.

References

External links

Israeli Air Force squadrons {{Israel-mil-stub