A Signal to Iran? As Israel and the United States air forces conduct joint drills in southern Israel

Israel's F-35 fighter jets and six F-15 fighters from the United States Air Force Central Command took part in multi-day joint drills at Nevatim Air Force base in southern Israel, in what could be a message to Iran in the ongoing nuclear standoff.

F-35 Squadron 140 Commander Lt. Col. "M" and Capt. "I" ran the drill from the Israeli side. They both shied away from getting too specific about the F-35's capabilities in regards to any specific country but they did make it clear that they were ready and capable to strike anywhere at anytime the IDF high command ordered them to fly.

Also, the objective of the joint drills and simulated attacks is to train and condition the pilots to hit their targets "deep" in the enemies' region or countries who do not have immediate borders with Israel.

The air force potentially will be ready to attack Iran in roughly

"two to three years."

Recently at a graduation ceremony of air force members, the former defense minister, Benny Gantz, said that the graduates will need to be ready for a potential attack of Iran in "two to three years."

Six Israeli F-35 fighters took off on the training mission, (although Israel didn't reveal the full number of fighters in the mission). Also making opening maneuvers were four of the six American F-15 fighters that took off and conducted their flight patterns.

The Gulfstream G-500/G-550 also known as the "Nachshon" also took off and was involved to train to gather intelligence.

In December, IDF chief of staff, Aviv Kohavi said, "Israeli air force jets attacking Syria in recent years have at times faced 30 to 40 surface to air missiles, or even in one instance, up to 70 such missiles, without losing a single aircraft."

Without talking about a specific operation, "M" emphasized the power of the F-35's stealth capabilities and that he also had confronted the danger on various missions during his career. He said, "Neither "M" or "I" could discuss the impact of Russia's removal of the S-300 anti aircraft system from Syria for use against Ukraine, but they did say that the ISF trains constantly for every scenario that its fighter jets might encounter."

"M" also didn't want to mention a time frame concerning the F-35 fighter, as they were grounded on December 25th from flying in any training exercises because of the potential malfunction that was found also in the American fighters, or when they may be returning to the sky to full active duty.

The feeling seems to be that the review of the potential malfunction could be complicated and may take awhile to figure it out.

But "M" was clear that the remaining F-35's available, of which the Israeli's have three squadrons, these squadrons have about 10 to 25 fighters, were plenty as well as other Israeli fighters to help them accomplish their missions that would be assigned to them.