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In a first, Israeli & German jets in joint military exercise to honour holocaust victims

The Israeli Air Force’s F-16C/D Barak fighter jets entered the German airspace Monday for joint military exercises and a memorial event.

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New Delhi: Creating history, fighter jets from Israeli and German Air Force units will fly together Tuesday over the Dachau concentration camp and the Fürstenfeldbruck’ airport, more than 75 years after the end of the Nazi Holocaust. They will also hold a joint military exercise.

Leaving behind a bitter history, six F-16s of the Israeli Air Force had entered the German airspace for the first time Monday. They were escorted by Germany’s Eurofighter planes.

“On behalf of the German Air Force it is an honor for me to welcome the Israeli Air Force entering German airspace for the first time in history. My Israeli friend, Amikam, now our Blue Wings fly side by side!,” Luftwaffe (German Air Force) Commander Lt Gen. Ingo Gerhatz said while welcoming the Israelis jets.

Major General Amikam Norkin, who led the Israeli Air Force deployment, said it was a testimony to strong ties and mutual commitment between both countries.

Six F-16C/D Barak fighter jets had arrived Monday at the Nörvenich Air Base near Cologne in the west of Germany.


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‘Sign of our friendship’

The German Air Force also confirmed that six Israeli F-16 aircraft will take part in the military exercises over the next two weeks.

As part of the exercises, the honorary ‘Memory for the Future’ flyover will be held Tuesday over the Dachau concentration camp — the first one to be opened in 1933 — and the Fürstenfeldbruck’ airport. This flypast will be held in memory of 11 members of the Israeli delegation who were killed in the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics.

“The return flight passes the outskirts of Dachau. Afterwards, the German-Israeli delegation will lay a wreath at the concentration camp memorial site there and commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and the tyranny of National Socialism,” the German Air Force had said last week.

Lt Gen. Gerhartz had also said, “After the crime against humanity that was the Shoah (Hebrew word for Holocaust), it is a moving sign of our friendship today that we are flying side by side with the Israeli Air Force for the first time in our history.”

Gerhartz added that because of the Holocaust, Germany has an incentive “to fight anti-Semitism with utmost consistency”.

The Israel Air Force (IAF) has said that the exercises are being held to continue “enhancing the IAF’s capabilities, maintain its readiness to face various scenarios, and to continue strengthening its bonds and cooperation with allied air forces”.

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Israeli Ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff will join the team to take part in a subsequent memorial service.

Prior to this, the German Air Force had taken part in joint drills in 2019 in Israel’s Negev desert.


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1 COMMENT

  1. the erstwhile wolves paying homage to the erstwhile sheep for having killed them en masse! what else will this 2020 show us!

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