As Israel struggles to maintain some of its important alliances abroad, particularly in Europe, a major defence deal with Greece bucks a worrying trend for the country’s leaders.
The more than $3.4 billion Achilles Shield agreement is the largest of its kind between Israel and Greece, and one of the largest in Israel’s history.
Athens is now set to receive “a multilayered defence array” based on Israeli systems. They include the David’s Sling and Spyder air defence systems, manufactured by Israeli defence company Rafael, and Barak MX, made by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), as well as a new national command-and-control system developed by Rafael. A second deal will involve Israel supplying Greece with anti-drone systems.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal “expresses Israel's strength, the confidence in our defence exports and the strengthening of regional alliances”. Defence Minister Israel Katz said it demonstrated “the depth of the strategic relationship between Israel and Greece and of our shared determination to keep strengthening it”.
Greece and Israel have co-operated on defence before. Greece has bought Israeli arms and in 2023 IAI acquired Intracom Defence, which it described as “Greece’s leading technology defence company [which] specialises in the production of missile launchers, missile subsystems, land and sea tactical communications, hybrid generation and more”.
In today’s Middle East, the deal is about more than the value and capabilities of the systems that comprise it. It is also about more than the Israel-Greece relationship. Mr Katz’s statement referenced “actors with hegemonic ambitions [who] are seeking to expand their influence and undermine stability in the region” – widely considered a reference to Turkey, against which Israel’s government has been increasingly ratcheting up the rhetoric.
Throughout his ministerial career, Mr Katz has railed against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In August, he said Mr Erdogan was “dragging Turkey into dangerous adventures” after Israel carried out an air strike in Syria.
Mr Netanyahu's office said the attack was carried out because “Syria was on the verge of breaching [an agreement] by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo”.
His office called Mr Erdogan “an anti-Semitic dictator who has massacred Kurds, harbours Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him”.
Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior research fellow at Israeli think tank INSS, said the deal “has been in the making for some time”. It is a mistake, she said, to view its announcement on Monday “as an immediate response” to regional developments involving Turkey, such as the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as Israel’s strikes on an airbase in Syria where it said Turkish troops were about to deploy.
“Having said that, there is a meaning to the culmination of the deal at this time, which has to be linked to the general growing concern in Europe and worldwide from missile and UAV threats, the continuing tensions between Greece and Turkey and developments in the Turkish armed forces,” Ms Lindenstrauss added.
The rhetoric against Turkey comes after years of Israel strengthening its relations with Greece and Cyprus. In December 2025, Mr Netanyahu met his Greek and Cypriot counterparts for the tenth meeting since 2016. Discussions over the years have focused on energy, undersea electricity cables and plans for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
Recently, the allies have been talking more about military co-operation. Greek media reports before the December meeting suggested that the three nations might develop a rapid response force.
“In the eastern Mediterranean there is definitely a revisionist Turkish stance with regard to the limits of Greek economic waters,” Ms Lindenstrauss said. “It’s definitely not a status quo actor in the eastern Mediterranean. In Syria the story is a bit more complex. As a neighbour, security challenges for Turkey emanate from Syria, as they do for Israel, too.”
Israel’s biggest defence deal is the roughly $8 billion deal to supply Germany with the Arrow 3 long-range missile defence system. The first part of the agreement was signed in 2024 and was worth about $4.6 billion. In 2025, an expansion of the deal was signed and was worth about $3 billion.
