Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he intends to acquire further submarines and warships, arguing that the maritime domain has turned into “an international battlefield”.
He spoke on October 4 during a visit to the naval base at Ashdod, southern Israel, accompanied by Israeli defence minister Israel Katz and senior navy commanders.
Netanyahu said Israel’s enemies wanted to threaten its maritime space in the Mediterranean along with its seaports and shipping, citing the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb strait. He added that the security establishment had asked for more equipment and that he wanted Israel to rank among world leaders in warfare on and under the sea.
The Prime Minister set out neither numbers nor a timetable, and said he did not intend to detail the other systems involved.
Much of the programme he described is built inside the European Union. Israel’s sixth submarine, the INS Drakon, reached Haifa on September 24 from the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems yard in Kiel, northern Germany, and is the largest submarine built in Germany since the Second World War.
Berlin approved roughly €800 million in arms export licences for Israel in the first five months of 2026, more than in the previous 20 months combined, with the submarine accounting for most of that sum. It followed the partial embargo announced by Chancellor Friedrich Merz in August 2025, which Berlin lifted on November 24 that year.
Further Dakar-class boats remain on order from German yards. Sea trials for the Drakon were delayed after Denmark and Norway declined to allow contractor testing in their deep waters, obliging the builder to move to international waters in the North Sea.
Israeli media read Netanyahu’s remarks as aimed in part at the Houthis and at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is pursuing a submarine programme of his own. Ankara’s expansive claims across the eastern Mediterranean have already unsettled Greece and Cyprus, both EU member states.
At the Drakon’s handover ceremony, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the defence relationship ran both ways, with Israeli exports to Germany “contributing to the security of all of Europe”.
The navy has traditionally been the junior service in the Israeli armed forces, behind the army and the air force. Netanyahu’s announcement suggests that is beginning to change.
