The Pentagon has awarded Boeing an $8.6 billion contract to design, produce, and deliver F-15IA fighter jets to the Israeli Air Force — an announcement made days after US President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida. Netanyahu, who is subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged war crimes, traveled to Mar-a-Lago for the meeting.

The contract provides for the production of 25 new F-15IA aircraft, with an option for an additional 25. It is structured as a Foreign Military Sales agreement — meaning US taxpayers are financing the transfer of advanced weapons systems to a government currently facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

The Pentagon announcement is available here. Work will be performed in Missouri.

The timing of the announcement is not incidental. It followed directly from the Trump-Netanyahu meeting — a meeting that produced no public accounting for the 72,000+ Palestinians killed since October 2023, no conditions on weapons transfers, and no acknowledgment of the ICC warrant. What it produced was a contract.

The F-15 is not a defensive weapon. It is a strike aircraft — the same category of platform that has been used to bomb hospitals, schools, and residential buildings across Gaza throughout the conflict. Expanding Israel’s fleet while the ceasefire continues to be violated, while Palestinian civilians continue to be killed, and while humanitarian organizations are being systematically expelled from Gaza, is not a neutral procurement decision. It is a political choice — one that tells Israel, and the world, that the United States remains a full partner in whatever comes next.