US to Spend $1.5bn Building New Bases and Facilities for the Israeli Military

The United States is building infrastructure to accommodate the Israel Air Force’s new refueling aircraft and helicopters, as well as a new headquarters for the Israeli army’s Shayetet 13 naval commando unit, and numerous other projects costing billions of shekels, according to official documents from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published online. All these projects are funded by U.S. military aid to Israel.

A call for contractors to a conference originally scheduled for June but postponed due to the war with Iran revealed that the U.S. military aid construction program for Israel includes ongoing projects valued at more than $250 million, with future projects expected to exceed $1 billion.

The program covers the construction of new facilities at various military bases, including clinics, naval piers, headquarters for different units and ammunition storage sites. It also involves upgrades to existing infrastructure, runway renovations and aircraft painting facilities.

According to documents and presentations from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the initiative comprises roughly 20 separate projects with a combined price tag of $1.5 billion. The details of some projects, listed only under code names, remain undisclosed.

Israel receives $3.8 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid under a memorandum of understanding signed with the Obama administration, covering the period from 2019 to 2028. The war in Gaza has triggered an unprecedented surge in supplemental assistance, and according to Brown University’s Cost of War project, the United States had provided Israel with an additional $18 billion in arms by September 2024.

In January of this year, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a special military aid package worth $26 billion, which included approximately $4 billion for interceptors for Israel’s missile defense systems.

Criticism of U.S. security assistance to Israel is mounting on both the American right and left. Although the IDF uses the aid to buy weapons from U.S. manufacturers – supporting American jobs – more and more politicians argue it is time to either end the assistance or use it as leverage over Israel.

In April, while hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, President Donald Trump addressed the issue, saying: “Don’t forget, we help Israel a lot. We give Israel $4 billion a year. That’s a lot… But we take care of our friends,” he told Netanyahu.

Since the projects are funded through U.S. military aid, only American companies are eligible to bid as primary contractors. However, most of the work on the ground is ultimately performed by Israeli subcontractors.

One tender, valued at approximately $900 million, is currently under development and is expected to be issued around July 2025, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document. More than half of that amount was added last year after Israel decided to acquire additional squadrons of F-35 and F-15IA fighter jets.

According to the documents, the projects include planning and engineering tenders worth several tens of millions of dollars, as well as construction, renovation, and upgrade tenders for existing military facilities, some of which are valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Some of the largest projects are tied to the Israel Air Force. Two contracts for the rehabilitation and renovation of bases, including runways and taxiways, are already in the implementation phase. Others involve so-called bed-down efforts, which involve setting up infrastructure to accommodate the Air Force’s future refueling aircraft, the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus, and the CH-53K heavy-lift helicopters.

The projects also include the construction of a new headquarters for Shayetet 13, the Israeli Navy’s commando unit, in Atlit in northern Israel, as well as a project referred to in some documents as Tama 38 and in others as Tama 58, which involves upgrading IDF maintenance centers for armored vehicles.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a comment that this project is unrelated to Israel’s Tama 38 urban renewal program or the Tama 58 waste management plan. The IDF has not commented on the U.S.-funded projects.

In presentations and documents from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, project locations are referred to only by code names. When contractors are invited for preliminary site visits, the locations are kept confidential and disclosed verbally. Tender documents also instruct competing companies to avoid including any identifying details about the project locations.

However, these tender documents are extensive, sometimes spanning hundreds or even thousands of pages, and contain detailed regulations, drawings and specifications down to the size of bolts and the thickness of concrete. Some specify the exact locations of the project, while others include detailed maps and aerial photographs of the sites, including access roads to the construction areas, effectively revealing the identity of the projects.

In other cases, the Air Force base itself reveals the missing details. For example, articles about the consolidation of the CH-53 squadrons ahead of receiving the new helicopters note that Squadron 114 was established on April 20, 1966, at Tel Nof Airbase, adding that it remains its home to this day. The articles also mention that the squadron’s facilities will be renovated and adapted for the CH-53K helicopter in preparation for its arrival in Israel. Thus, “Site 20136” referenced in the U.S. documents corresponds to Tel Nof Airbase.

This is not the first time the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has publicly revealed construction projects in Israel. In 2012, The Washington Post reported that it supervised the construction of a five-story underground facility, “Site 911,” for use by the Israeli Air Force, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

Publicly available project documents show that this was a large-scale undertaking at Nevatim Air Base. Nevatim is one of three bases established under the peace agreement with Egypt, in preparation for the evacuation of air force bases in Sinai. It is a joint-use base with the United States, and according to a recent tender from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, renovations are needed for the living quarters of American forces stationed there.

In 2012, Haaretz Hebrew Edition reported on a project to construct another secret underground facility, known as “Site 81,” with an estimated cost of $100 million. According to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document, concerns were raised regarding electromagnetic shielding at the site. Images included in the inspection report reveal that the underground facility is located beneath a building in central Tel Aviv.

Source: Haaretz