Israel MoD is in talks to sell over 200 surplus Merkava tank to two countries, one of them in Europe, in what would be the first export of the flagship fighting vehicle, a Defence Ministry official said on Thursday.
Introduced after Israel’s armoured corps suffered heavy losses against Egypt and Syria in a 1973 war, and with a view to reducing reliance on foreign arms supplies, the Merkava – biblical Hebrew for “chariot” – is now in its fourth generation.
Yair Kulas, head of the Defence Ministry export coordination department SIBAT, said record demand for Israeli products was due in part to countries wanting to replenish their arsenals after providing Ukraine with weapons for its war with Russia.
As a result, he told Calcalist newspaper, Israel was exporting surplus systems it had not previously sold abroad, including earlier-generation Merkavas.