Rising Lion's Air Offensive
Aircraft, Weapons, and Operations Part I
March 2026
Guy Plopsky
Following the 12-day war in late June 2025, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) immediately began a project to understand how the region has changed and what the military action could mean for future combat. The project and its contributors believed that war would begin again and that the pause in combat in June 2025 could simply be a prelude to a major wider and longer-lasting war. That day has now come. This chapter is the first of two parts that examine the Israeli Air Force's operations in June 2025 and the immediate lessons learned. The second part is forthcoming. As expected, FPRI will also begin its own assessment of Operation Epic Fury and the implications for US and allied air power operations. Operation Rising Lion, initiated in response to the potentially existential threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, constitutes the most complex and ambitious air offensive ever undertaken by the state of Israel. Executed to great effect by the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF’s) Air and Space Arm (popularly known as simply the Israeli Air Force or IAF), Aman (the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate), and Mossad (the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations), the meticulously planned offensive highlighted Israel’s continued qualitative edge in manpower and technology over its enemies. Within a period of less than two weeks in June 2025, and without suffering any combat or operational losses of manned aircraft, Israel was able to rapidly establish air superiority and supremacy over relevant parts of Iran, heavily degrade the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile capabilities, and significantly set back its nuclear program. These accomplishments—and the execution of Rising Lion more broadly—have been the subject of much international attention. While information is necessarily fragmentary, the current chapter represents an attempt at providing an operational account of the Israeli air offensive. Based exclusively on open sources, the chapter consists of two parts, each comprising three sections. The first opens with a concise, non-exhaustive chronology of Israeli air operations during Rising Lion before proceeding to discuss strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, including those conducted by the US military as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, in greater detail. It ends with a select overview of some of the fighter aircraft and air-to-surface weapons employed by the IAF.1 The second part commences with a discussion of Israel’s offensive counterair (OCA)
1 Approved by the IDF Censorship Bureau.
This report is part of the six part series Operation Rising Lion: A Military and Regional Perspective