The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have announced that its Sa’ar 6 ship will arrive in Israel from Germany in December. The IDF said that additional three ships will arrive within the coming year.
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The ship, which is supposed to arrive in December, will join the Israeli Navy’s fleet to reinforce the IDF’s naval superiority, with an emphasis on defensive capabilities for important strategic assets and on offensive capabilities that have never been seen before in the eastern Mediterranean," said the IDF on 5 November.
The ships were sent along with Israeli engineers to work on the project of upgrading the missile ships which play a significant role in "protecting Israel's naval assets."
"The mission of defending Israel's Exclusive Economic Zone and strategic assets at sea is our primary security mission of the Israeli Navy. These assets are essential to the operational continuity of the State of Israel, and having the ability to protect them has critical importance. The security needed to protect the EEZ is clear. The best protection method of that space and the assets in it is by ships, and the Sa’ar 6 Corvettes fulfill that operational need in a precise and excellent way,” said Maj. Gen. Eli Sharvit, the Commander of the Israeli Navy.
In the early years of the new millennium, reserves of natural gas were discovered in the Levant Basin, Eastern Mediterranean. Part of the discovered area falls within Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) giving the country new assets to protect since the country relies on natural gas to generate 70% of its electricity.
In May 2015, the Israeli Navy ordered four German-made warships Sa'ar 6-class corvette. All four vessels will be constructed in Germany in a joint project by German Naval Yards Holdings and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.
