The US military has hit pause on plans to pull aerial refueling aircraft out of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, reversing a drawdown that was supposed to signal cooling tensions with Iran.
The aircraft have been stationed at Ben Gurion since late February 2026, when the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iranian targets in operations dubbed Epic Fury and Rising Lion. A partial withdrawal of roughly 20% of the refueling units had been announced in mid-June as part of what looked like a potential de-escalation framework between Washington and Tehran.
From drawdown to standstill
The original deployment involved an estimated 20 to 28 aerial refueling aircraft. The February strikes were not small. Reports indicated nearly 900 combined US and Israeli military actions targeting Iran during that period.
The backdrop here matters. The US-Israel joint operations escalated significantly following what’s been called the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, a rapid and intense conflict that reshaped the military calculus in the region.
