BERLIN – With Germany about to deploy its Arrow air defense system, bought from Israel, for the first time this week, the Israeli Defense Ministry (IMDO) has made new progress regarding the German-built submarines in Berlin. According to foreign reports, the submarines are able to deliver nuclear weapons, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram flew to Germany on Monday night to participate in officially unveiling and deploying the Israeli-supplied Arrow 3 missile defense system later this week, where the Post will be in attendance.
This $3.6 billion deal is the first time the Arrow 3 will be deployed outside of Israel. Continued movement on the issue comes on one hand as Berlin continues to buy weapons from the Jewish state, while concurrently removing a temporary, but lengthy, weapons sales ban on Jerusalem over the recently concluded Israel-Hamas War.
The Post learned back in 2024 that IMDO Director Moshe Patel, Arrow 3 project head for Germany Col. Carsten Koepperh, and IAI’s Missiles and Space Division head Guy Bar Lev were the lead parties, while the discussions also included representatives from IAI’s MLM Division and Elta.
Further, the ministry said in 2024 that the Arrow system – including the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors – was developed in cooperation between Israel and the United States to counter long-range ballistic missile threats, with IAI as the prime contractor.
New progress on submarine deals
During Baram and other senior defense officials’s stay in Germany, they have made new progress regarding the ongoing submarine deals, which have unique offensive and also defensive capabilities.
Multiple foreign publications have reported that Israeli submarines are part of a triad of nuclear deterrence that Israel possesses, along with land-based and air-based weapons. Though Israel has never publicly admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, former prime ministers like Ehud Olmert and others have, at times, slipped up and alluded to the weapons program.
Besides the offensive dimensions, the IDF made unusual disclosures during the Israel-Hamas War about the involvement of submarines in operations against Iran, Yemen, and Syria, including operations that assisted with Israel’s defense against aerial threats.
Movement on both the submarines and the Arrow, along with new levels of Israeli and German cooperation in other cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), signals that the special relationship between Berlin and Jerusalem remains.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is due to visit Israel next week, in parallel, to mark 60 years of Israeli-German relations.
Regarding the Arrow deal for Germany, signed in 2023, the strength of the deal was boosted three times by the system’s stellar performance in 2024 and again in 2025. On April 13 and 14, 2025, the Arrow was instrumental in shooting down the vast majority of the 120 ballistic missiles that Iran fired on Israel.
On October 1, the Arrow did not shoot down as high a percentage of the 180 Iranian ballistic missiles fired on Israel, with reports that some dozens struck the Nevatim and the Tel Nof air force bases, but was viewed as performing to a high standard nevertheless. Moreover, sources have indicated that Israel may have decided to “allow” certain ballistic missiles through to those locations, once it had already evacuated them of pilots and aircraft.
While both bases took on some significant damage, no pilots or aircraft were lost during the Iranian attack.
In June, the Arrow once again shot down a high percentage of Iranian missiles during the 12-Day war with the Islamic Republic. Though far from hermetic, with 28 Israelis killed and a much larger number wounded, the physical and economic harm was still very small in military terms , compared to the 550 missiles Iran fired.