The Israeli Defence Ministry has permitted a $1.5 billion program to broaden the manufacturing of Merkava major battle tanks and Namer and Eitan armoured personnel carriers (APCs) over the following 5 years. This funding was selected following shut to 2 years of fight with Palestinian paramilitary teams within the Gaza Strip, and after months of intense clashes with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which have resulted in important armour losses. In keeping with the ministry’s assertion, the funding “will enhance the armoured automobile stock whereas boosting manufacturing charges of the Merkava Mk. 4 Barak tanks, Namer APCs, and Eitan wheeled APCs, together with these geared up with a turreted 30mm cannon.” It added that “these platforms have collected a couple of million kilometres in [the] present operation,” highlighting the Israeli Army’s heavy reliance on them for a spread of operations.
The Namer is among the many heaviest armoured personnel carriers on the earth, with a weight akin to that of a major battle tank, and was constructed on the Merkava chassis offering important commonality between the designs. The Eitan is Israel’s first eight-wheeled APC, and is a lighter and extra cell automobile that has been incrementally upgraded over time, most not too long ago with the addition of a remote-controlled turret armed with a 30mm cannon.
Footage from early October, 2023, confirmed important losses amongst Israel’s Merkava tanks, as advancing Palestinian paramilitary teams captured a number of dozen of the automobiles and lots of of different Israeli Army automobiles, earlier than destroying them as they withdrew. Personnel from the Palestinian Hamas paramilitary group had been confirmed by video footage to have used drones to strike Israeli armour, gaining a minimum of one kill towards an a Merkava tank through the early hours of hostilities. After Israel initiated a full scale invasion of the Gaza Strip later that month, footage steadily confirmed profitable assaults by Hamas paramilitary models towards Merkava tanks, which regularly concerned pairing planted explosives with using rocket propelled grenades utilizing the duvet of cities to ambush the automobiles. A few of these ambushes have seen closely enhanced new Merakva IV variants with superior Trophy energetic safety programs neutralised and their crews killed, which have been thought-about important feats in mild of how evenly armed Palestinian paramilitary teams have been.
After Israel launched an invasion of Southern Lebanon in late September 2024, a number of experiences from each Lebanese and Israeli sources indicated that Israeli floor models ambushed by the native paramilitary group Hezbollah took important losses, with additional experiences specifying the losses of Merkava tanks. Hezbollah has beforehand demonstrated superior anti tank capabilities, and when repelling an Israeli invasion in 2006 made efficient use of Russian Kornet missiles to destroy a number of Merkava III and Merkava IV tanks. Merkava tanks in December 2024 spearheaded advances deep into Syria, after the Syrian authorities was overthrown by Israeli and Turkish and Qatari backed insurgents, which allowed the Israeli Army to quickly take floor with out dealing with native resistance. The overthrow of the Syrian Ba’ath Occasion, a longstanding adversary of Israel, and the set up of a brand new regime carefully aligned with Western and Turkish pursuits, has taken important stress of the Israeli Army, because the Syrian Arab Army had beforehand fielded a formidable hostile tank fleet and anti-tank capabilities throughout Israel’s border.
