IDF says 200 jets involved in Air Force’s largest-ever attack sortie

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

An Israeli Air Force fighter jet flies over central Israel, February 28, 2026. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)
An Israeli Air Force fighter jet flies over central Israel, February 28, 2026. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

With some 200 fighter jets, the Israeli Air Force says it carried out its largest-ever strike sortie in Iran today.

The extensive strikes targeted Iranian ballistic missile launchers and air defense systems, according to the military.

The IDF says the fighter jets dropped hundreds of munitions on some 500 Iranian military targets in western and central Iran, near-simultaneously, in the morning hours as part of the sortie.

“This is the largest strike sortie in the history of the Israeli Air Force, executed after close planning with high-quality intelligence, synchronizing hundreds of aircraft simultaneously,” the military says in a statement.

The IDF says that the strikes on Iran’s air defense systems “enabled the expansion of air superiority over Iranian skies and caused a severe blow to the regime’s central offensive capability, the launch sites in western Iran.”

One of the sites that was struck in the Tabriz area served Iran’s ballistic missile unit, “and from there it planned to launch dozens of missiles toward Israel,” the IDF says.

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