Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was killed in action during the detonation of unexploded ordnance at Erbil Air Base, Iraq, a release states.

Lt. Gen. John L. Rafferty, commanding general of Army Air and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement that Swinton died “during an operation to safeguard fellow soldiers.”

The circumstances surrounding his death are under investigation. A second service member was wounded in the detonation and received treatment for a minor injury, U.S. Central Command said.

Swinton enlisted in the Army in 2017 as an Air Defense Early Warning System Operator. He was stationed in Fayetteville and assigned to D Battery, 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.

Following his death, Swinton will receive the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge, the Pentagon said. He will be posthumously promoted to staff sergeant.

“His service will not be forgotten, and his sacrifice is not in vain. We will support Sgt. Swinton’s family and his unit during this difficult period,” Rafferty said. “His loss will inspire his fellow soldiers to continue the mission.”

Swinton’s prior awards and decorations include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Army Service Ribbon and Combat Action Badge.

Brig. Gen. John L. Dawber, commanding general of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, said Swinton “took great pride in his work and the people around him.”

“He answered the call to duty with courage, honor, and selfless dedication,” Dawber said.

Separately, the Pentagon released the identities Monday of two other U.S. soldiers killed in action in recent days in an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan.

U.S. Army Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, from Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died July 17 and July 18, respectively, according to a Department of Defense release.

The deaths bring the toll of American troops killed in the war with Iran to 17.

A third U.S. service member is missing, the command release added, while four more troops had to be medically evacuated to hospitals in Jordan.

Those four service members have since been discharged, the command added.

“Other personnel who were evaluated for minor injuries have returned to duty,” the release stated.

U.S. Central Command is withholding the identities of the dead until 24 hours after the service members’ next of kin have been notified.

Additional information about the exact location of the attack had not been provided as of publication.

The casualties in Friday’s attack bring the toll of American troops killed in the war with Iran to 16.

Most recently, the commanding officer of the Navy’s Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5, Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards, was killed on July 1 when the MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter he was aboard went down in the Arabian Sea. Three other sailors were rescued following the emergency landing.

More than 400 U.S. troops have been wounded in the campaign, which began Feb. 28.

“All six crew members aboard a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased,” CENTCOM announced. “The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace March 12 during Operation Epic Fury.”

In a press briefing Friday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine stated the crash occurred “while the crew was on a combat mission.”

Two aircraft were reportedly involved in the incident, officials said Thursday, with the second aircraft landing safely.

“[It] was not the result of hostile or friendly fire,” Caine added.

The circumstances of the crash are under investigation.

“We are devastated by the loss of our airmen supporting Operation Epic Fury and extend our condolences to their families and communities affected,” U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said. “Our warfighters answered the nation’s call — we will honor their sacrifice as we continue to fight until the job is done.”

Numerous KC-135s are currently deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations, where crews have provided aerial refueling for other aircraft as a part of Operation Epic Fury.

The downed KC-135 is the fourth manned U.S. aircraft to be lost this month amid combat operations against the Islamic Republic.

On March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down by a Kuwaiti F/A-18 in a friendly fire incident, U.S. Central Command announced at the time. All six F-15 crew members ejected and were safely recovered.

A total of 13 U.S. service members have been killed during combat actions and roughly 140 more wounded — eight severely — across the opening two weeks of Operation Epic Fury.

Another service member, an Army National Guard officer who also served as a New York City policeman, died on March 6 following a non-combat incident.

Identities of the deceased KC-135 crew members are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.

“Our service members make an incredible sacrifice to go forward and do the things that the nation asks of them,” Caine said. “It’s a reminder of the true cost of the dedication and commitment of the joint force.”

The investigation, which Air Force Global Strike Command released on July 25, also found that poor weather conditions, a lack of discipline, poor resource management and communication, and “an organizational culture that tolerated decaying airmanship skills” were among the other factors contributing to the Jan. 4 crash.

The report, signed by accident investigation board president Col. Erick Lord, criticized the 34th Bomb Squadron’s alleged lack of effective supervision of flying operations, and the 28th Operations Support Squadron’s alleged failure to communicate airfield and weather conditions, which “all speak to culture and leadership issues.” Investigators also said they found “unsatisfactory levels of basic airmanship” at the 34th.

“Many failures leading to this mishap were not a one-time occurrence or an aberration,” the report concluded. “The mishap occurred due to numerous factors, including a culture of noncompliance, widespread deviation from established policy and procedure, and several organizational influences and preconditions.”

Global Strike said the chain of command will take the appropriate corrective actions to address the problems highlighted in the report.

The four members of the bomber’s air crew ejected during the crash; two sustained injuries and were treated and released from a medical facility.

Fire engulfed the $451 million B-1 bomber, which was assigned to the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth, and it was a total loss.

The B-1 bomber was one of two that took part in a routine training flight that began the afternoon of Jan. 4. Winds were calm when the pair of bombers took off, but during the roughly 90-minute flight, the weather worsened and dense fog began rolling across the airfield. The bombers cut their training flights short and headed back to the base.

The first bomber landed safely. But the fog left the crew of the doomed B-1 with low visibility as it approached the airfield, the report said, and the winds rapidly shifted during the flight’s final minute, speeding the bomber up. The pilot reduced the engine throttle three times to cut the bomber’s airspeed and stay on the right angle.

But when the wind stabilized, the report said the pilot didn’t dial the throttle back up to return the bomber to the right airspeed. The bomber dropped below its intended glide path and “became thrust deficient,” but the air crew didn’t realize the bomber’s vertical velocity had dropped before it became unrecoverable.

Four seconds before the crash, the instructor pilot on board called out “climb, climb, climb,” and then two seconds later repeated “climb.” The report said the data suggests that after the instructor’s final call to climb, the pilot hit the afterburners and pulled the control stick back, but by that point the bomber “was unrecoverable and out of control.”

The bomber first hit the ground about 100 feet shy of the runway overrun, and the crew compartment lost power and went dark. The crew then ejected. The bomber skidded for about 5,000 feet across the runway, veering to the left, before coming to a flaming halt in an infield between two runways.

The report found that the main cause of the crash was the crew’s lack of an effective “composite crosscheck,” a practice which brings together various instruments to keep track of how the aircraft is performing in a low-visibility environment. Had an effective crosscheck been performed, investigators found, the crew should have been able to tell the plane’s speed was dropping dangerously.

“The [mishap crew] succumbed to complacency and fixation, while the [mishap instructor pilot] was ineffective in his crew leadership and instructor supervision duties,” the report concluded.

Poor weather conditions – including icing conditions during the descent phase – and a lack of awareness of airfield conditions substantially contributed to the crash, investigators found.

The report said investigators did not find any maintenance issues contributed to the crash.

The loss of the bomber represented another blow to an already dwindling B-1 fleet, which now numbers 44.

The B-1, a conventional bomber that is not nuclear-capable, was flown extremely hard during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fleet has suffered from serious maintenance problems as a result.

The Air Force retired 17 of the oldest and most worn-out B-1s in 2021 in an attempt to free up resources to maintain healthier planes, leaving it with 45. The service hopes to keep flying them, along with the B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress, until the B-21 Raider comes online. At some point in the 2030s, the Air Force plans to retire all its B-1s and B-2s.

Ellsworth halted B-1 operations the day after the crash and closed its runway for a month. Some Ellsworth B-1s were sent to Dyess Air Force Base in Texas during the investigation.

During that period, Ellsworth B-1s that had temporarily relocated to Dyess took part in strikes against Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria after drone strikes killed three U.S. troops and wounded dozens more.

The explosion happened Wednesday at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems’ plant in Camden, about 86 miles south of Little Rock, a company spokesperson said. The person who died was initially reported as missing.

Two other people were injured in the blast. One was airlifted to an out-of-state hospital and the other has since been released from an area hospital in Camden where they were treated, the company said.

“We are deeply saddened to share the news that one of our employees has tragically lost their life in an incident at our Camden facility,” said Firat Gezen, president of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems. “Our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to the family, friends, and colleagues of the deceased and injured individuals during this incredibly difficult time.”

All affected next of kin have been notified, according to the company’s statement, which added further details about the deceased employee would not be released “out of respect for their privacy.”

Production remains paused at the building where the explosion occurred while regulatory and local authorities conduct an investigation into the cause. “Internal investigations are also underway to understand how this occurred and to implement measures to prevent such incidents in the future,” the company said.

General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defense company. The Camden plant houses more than 880,000 square feet of manufacturing and storage space, and it supports military programs such as the Hellfire and Javelin missiles and various mortar munitions, according to the company’s website.

The company initially called it an “incident involving pyrotechnics” but later confirmed it was an explosion.

Air Force investigators are continuing to probe the Nov. 29 crash in parallel with a comprehensive review of whether the service’s Osprey force is properly trained and equipped to fly safely, Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here Tuesday.

While Bauernfeind offered no additional clues into what may have caused the accident, the Pentagon’s Joint Safety Council said earlier this month it was working with the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy to return their Ospreys to service.

Bauernfeind said he is in weekly conversations with leaders from the sister services to determine the path forward to flight, adding that flights will only resume after he has full confidence in training, crews and the platform, as well as measures in place to mitigate future issues.

“What is the information we need to now put the appropriate risk mitigations in place to move forward?” he said. “Just because we’re having those conversations does not mean that we have the information we need yet.”

The U.S. military grounded its fleet of around 400 Ospreys — about 50 of which belong to the Air Force — on Dec. 6 as the mishap investigation got underway. Japan also stopped flying its own 14 Ospreys after the accident.

The tiltrotor aircraft is known for its towering nacelles that allow it to launch and land like a helicopter, and speed forward like a fixed-wing plane. Air Force special operations units use the CV-22 to navigate into and out of areas where fixed-wing planes may not be able to land with troops and supplies. Each Osprey can carry about three dozen troops or 10,000 pounds of cargo.

While it remains unclear what downed the American CV-22 in November, the Air Force has said that an aircraft malfunction — not a mistake by the crew — likely caused the crash. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that the Pentagon believes it has identified the cause but has declined to divulge the information as further analysis is underway.

Four fatal Osprey crashes, including the latest mishap, have claimed the lives of 20 American troops since March 2022. It also marked the first fatal incident involving an Air Force-owned CV-22 since 2010, and the service’s deadliest accident since 2018, when nine Puerto Rico Air National Guard troops died in a WC-130 weather reconnaissance plane crash.

The Air Force grounded its Osprey fleet for two weeks in 2022 following back-to-back “hard clutch” incidents, after the aircraft’s clutch temporarily slipped and then re-engaged. The move unevenly distributes power to the aircraft’s massive rotors and can cause it to lurch. One of those hard clutch problems caused a June 2022 crash that killed five Marines.

Bauernfeind said commanders around the globe have “leveraged other joint force capabilities” to meet their daily operational needs, but did not say how.

“There is a strong desire to return to fly because it is a capability we want to have,” he said. “But we want to be able to return to fly with as much knowledge as we possibly can, so that we can ensure that we’re safely taking care of our crews.”

Navy Rear Adm. Chris Engdahl, chairman of the Joint Safety Council and head of Naval Safety Command, told the Associated Press that commanders across the services may need to gather input on how long troops would need to spend in simulators to get ready to fly again, and what maintenance each Osprey needs before resuming operations.

“The Air Force and Marine Corps have been running the Osprey’s engines; the Marines have been conducting ground movements to keep the aircraft working,” the AP reported.

The Air Force announced Jan. 11 it had called off the weekslong, multinational search effort that recovered all but one of the Osprey’s downed crew members.

The service held a memorial for the fallen airmen earlier this month at Kadena Air Base, Japan, where two of the Osprey’s crew members were assigned. A larger memorial is planned for Thursday at Japan’s Yokota Air Base, where the downed crew was assigned to the 353rd Special Operations Wing.

On Sept. 24, about 30 armed ethnic Serbs entered a Kosovan village and killed a Kosovar police officer during a firefight, then took shelter in a monastery where police killed three of the ethnic Serbs while retaking the site.

According to Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the ethnic Serb paramilitary force trained in Serbia before the raid. He produced video footage allegedly showing them train with what appears to be an American-made military Humvee, manufactured by AM General.

Kosovar Defence Minister Ejup Maqedonci decried the alleged use of a Humvee.

“The rules that apply to us — as I am sure they are also applicable to other countries — for securing military-grade equipment, such as the military Humvees used, is that there needs to be congressional approval and an end-user certificate,” Maqedonci told Defense News. “These systems are designed so that U.S.-produced military equipment is not used in terrorist attacks. This case raises many questions about Serbia’s violations of such agreements.”

The battle was the latest outbreak of violence in Kosovo, which declared its independence from the Balkan nation of Serbia in 2008 and now oversees a restive Serbian minority community of about 50,000.

Serbia, which does not recognize Kosovan independence, accuses Kosovo of mistreating Serbian residents.

Kosovo alleges Serbia foments violent resistance by arming the community.

The allegation

Days after the battle, Kosovo’s prime minister posted the drone footage appearing to show a paramilitary exercise carried out at night.

He claimed it showed ethnic Serbian paramilitary forces training at Pasuljanske Livade, a military base inside Serbia, four days before the attack.

A Kosovo government spokesperson alleged the footage was captured by Kosovo police from the ethnic Serb paramilitaries.

In one of the videos, a fighter is seen firing a weapon mounted in the roof turret of what appears to be a military Humvee vehicle.

“The attacks enjoyed the full support and planning of the Serbian state,” according to Kurti — a claim since denied by Serbia.

In 2012 and 2017, the U.S. donated a total of 40 Humvee light armored vehicles to the Serbian Army.

Serbia has also purchased Humvees from U.S. company AM General, which delivered 66 vehicles in July 2023 — part of an order for a total of 118 vehicles.

The response

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Defense News the government is “looking into this matter.”

“The United States takes seriously any allegation involving U.S.-provided equipment anywhere in the world,” the spokesperson added.

A spokesperson for AM General told Defense News the company “cannot speak to the use of the vehicles by the customer.”

“AM General successfully delivered vehicles to Serbia following the [Direct Commercial Sales] process, which includes securing the proper authorization via an export license from the U.S. government,” the company spokesperson noted.

The Direct Commercial Sale process is used to export U.S. military goods by a U.S. firm made under a State Department license, as opposed to a Foreign Military Sales process, which is organized by the Defense Department.

For its part, Serbia has denied involvement in the raid in Kosovo.

When asked to confirm if the video showed a Serbian group training with a Serbian military-operated Humvee, the Serbian Defence Ministry referred Defense News to a press conference held Oct. 2 by Defence Minister Miloš Vučević and head of the military’s General Staff Gen. Milan Mojsilović, “where the allegations your questions refer to were refuted.”

During the news conference, Vučević denied the video showed the use of a Serbian Humvee during the training of paramilitaries.

“The fact that someone plays thermal vision recordings from a vague location, with utterly unidentified individuals and faces, can mean absolutely nothing,” he said.

Within hours of the horrific attack by Hamas, the U.S. began moving warships and aircraft to the region to be ready to provide Israel with whatever it needs to respond.

A second U.S. carrier strike group departs from Norfolk, Virginia, on Friday. Scores of aircraft are heading to U.S. military bases around the Middle East. Special operations forces are now assisting Israel’s military in planning and intelligence. The first shipment of additional munitions has already arrived.

[Israel-Hamas war misinformation flourishes on X as platform struggles]

More is expected, soon. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will arrive in Israel Friday to meet with Israeli leaders to discuss what else the U.S. can provide.

For now, the buildup reflects U.S. concern that the deadly fighting between Hamas and Israel could escalate into a more dangerous regional conflict. So the primary mission for those ships and warplanes is to establish a force presence that deters Hezbollah, Iran or others from taking advantage of the situation. But the forces the U.S. sends are capable of more than that.

A look at what weapons and options the U.S. military could provide:

Missiles for Iron Dome

The U.S. is providing some personnel and much-needed munitions to Israel. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that a small special operations cell was now assisting Israel with intelligence and planning, and providing advice and consultations to the Israeli Defense Forces on hostage recovery efforts. However those forces have not been tasked with hostage rescue, which would put them on the ground fighting in the conflict. That’s something the Biden administration has not approved and White House spokesman John Kirby has said the Israelis do not want.

The U.S. is also getting U.S. defense companies to expedite weapons orders by Israel that were already on the books. Chief among those are munitions for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

“We’re surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday. “We’re going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.”

Iron Dome’s missiles target rockets that approach its cities. According to Raytheon, Israel has 10 such systems in place. Beginning with Saturday’s attack, Hamas has fired more than 5,000 rockets at Israel, most of which the system has been able to intercept, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Raytheon produces most of the missile components for Iron Dome in the U.S., and the Army has two systems in its stockpile.

The Iron Dome munitions the U.S. provides to Israel will likely be above and beyond what Israel has ordered and will be part of ongoing military assistance packages. Those packages will also include small diameter bombs and JDAM kits — essentially a tail fin and navigation kit that turns a “dumb” bomb into a “smart” bomb and enables troops to guide the munition to a target, rather than simply dropping it.

Ships and aircraft

One of the most visible examples of the U.S. response was the announcement Sunday by the Pentagon to redirect the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to sail toward Israel. The carrier had just completed an exercise with the Italian Navy when the ship and its crew of about 5,000 were ordered to quickly sail to the Eastern Mediterranean.

One week after the attacks, as Israel positioned for a major ground offensive into Gaza City, Austin announced a second carrier group would be sailing toward Israel, as he ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group to join the Ford in the Eastern Mediterranean. In a statement announcing the move, Austin said he was sending the Eisenhower too “as part of our effort to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack on Israel.”

The carriers provide a host of options. They serve as primary command and control operations centers and can conduct information warfare. They can launch and recover E2-Hawkeye surveillance planes, recognizable by their 24-foot (7-meter) diameter disc-shaped radars. The planes provide early warnings on missile launches, conduct surveillance and manage the airspace, not only detecting enemy aircraft but also directing U.S. movements.

They also serve as a floating airbase for F-18 fighter jets that can fly intercepts or strike targets. And the carriers can flex to provide significant capabilities for humanitarian work, including onboard hospitals with ICUs, emergency rooms, medics, surgeons and doctors. They also sail with helicopters that can be used to airlift critical supplies in or victims out.

The Eisenhower had already been scheduled to deploy to the Mediterranean on a regular rotation, and the Ford is near the end of its scheduled deployment. But the Biden administration for now has decided to have both carriers there.

Air Force action

The Pentagon has also ordered additional warplanes to bolster existing squadrons of A-10, F-15 and F-16 squadrons at bases throughout the Middle East and is ready to add more if needed.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Tuesday at an Atlantic Council event that the service was doubling up by directing units that were about to come home to remain in place and stay there along with their replacements.

The U.S. Air Force already has significant airpower in the region to conduct manned and unmanned operations, most notably in Syria where an Air Force F-16 last week was ordered to shoot down a Turkish drone that was posing a threat to U.S. ground forces operating there.

Kendall also said U.S. Air Force C-17s have landed in and departed from Israel since the attacks. The transport planes were picking up U.S. military personnel who were there for a military exercise that hadn’t started yet when the attacks began, the Air Force said in a statement.

Neither the Air Force nor Central Command would comment on what additional missions U.S. airpower might take on in response to the conflict.

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

In an unprecedented escalation, armed Hamas fighters blew up parts of Israel’s highly fortified separation fence and strode into Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier, terrorizing residents and trading fire with Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies were scrambling to respond to the rapidly changing events. As the day wore on, the casualties quickly mounted.

Rescue Service Zaka, an Israeli group, said at least 200 people died in southern Israel and an additional 1,100 people were wounded.

At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip were killed and at least 1,610 wounded amid Israel’s retaliation.

Here are some key takeaways from the multi-pronged attack that has suddenly plunged Israel into war.

Israel caught by surprise

The shock that Israelis felt on Saturday morning — on Simchat Torah, one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar — recalled the surprise of the the 1973 Mideast war. Practically 50 years earlier to the day, a full-scale Egyptian-Syrian attack on a Jewish holiday quickly turned into a disaster for an unprepared Israeli military.

Then, as now, Israelis had assumed that their intelligence services would be able to alert the army to any major attack or invasion well in advance. That colossal failure still haunts the legacy of then-Prime Minister Golda Meir and helped bring down the lengthy rule of the once-dominant Labor Party.

Now, the question of how the militants were able to stage such a huge and coordinated attack — which has already killed more Israelis than any single assault since the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago — without triggering Israeli intelligence concerns has already presented a major challenge to Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government.

The government’s supporters had expected Netanyahu and hard-line ministers with a history of anti-Arab rhetoric like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to take a particularly belligerent stance against the Palestinians and respond more forcefully to threats from militants in Gaza.

As political analysts lambast Netanyahu over the failure, and the casualty count climbs, Netanyahu risks losing control of both his government and the country.

Paragliders aid unprecedented infiltration

Hamas claimed its fighters took several Israelis captive in the enclave, releasing gruesome videos of militants dragging bloodied soldiers across the ground and standing over dead bodies, some of them stripped to their underwear. It said senior Israeli military officers were among the captives.

The videos could not immediately be verified but matched geographic features of the area. Fears that Israelis had been kidnapped evoked the 2006 capture of soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas-linked militants seized in a cross-border raid. Hamas held Shalit for five years until he was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In a dramatic escalation unseen in decades, Hamas also sent paragliders flying into Israel, the Israeli military said. The brazen attack recalled a famous assault in the late 1980s when Palestinian militants crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel on hang-gliders and killed six Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army belatedly confirmed that soldiers and civilians were taken hostage in Gaza, but refused to provide further details.

Dangerous gamble by Hamas

Hamas officials cited long-simmering sources of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, including the dispute around the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is is sacred to both Muslims and Jews and remains at the emotional heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day warbetween Israel and Hamas in 2021.

In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.

Hamas statements have also cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands that the Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir’s efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

More recently, tensions have escalated with violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza frontier. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis that has sharpened public criticism of its rule.

Some political analysts have linked Hamas’ attack to current U.S.-brokered talks on normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So far, reports of possible concessions to Palestinians in the negotiations have involved Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, not Gaza.

“We have always said that normalization will not achieve security, stability, or calm,” Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the AP.

Israel in crisis

The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.

The protest movement, which accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab, has bitterly divided Israeli society and unleashed turmoil within the Israeli military. Hundreds of reservists have threatened to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest at the judicial overhaul.

Reservists are the backbone of the country’s army, and protests within the army ranks have raised concerns about the military’s cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu on Saturday called up “an extensive mobilization of reserve forces.”

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and exchanged fire numerous times since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky.

Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues of the conflict are rarely addressed and set the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.

With its increased leverage in this round, Hamas is likely to push harder for concessions on key issues, such as easing the blockade and winning the release of prisoners held by Israel.

The Russian Aerospace Forces, or VKS, possessed roughly 900 tactical aircraft before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. These included fighter, attack and fighter-bomber aircraft. Since the invasion, it has lost between 84 and 130 of those to air defenses, fighter aircraft and crashes. That’s only a portion of total losses, however. Overuse of these aircraft is also costing Russia as the war drags on.

In a conflict’s early stages, what matters is total combat power from all active platforms; that represents the maximum firepower that can be directed at the opposition from the onset. In a protracted war, where one force tries to exhaust the other, it’s the total longevity of the military force that matters. And that’s where the VKS finds itself now.

By my calculations, the extra hours that it’s pressed its aircraft into service since February 2022 have effectively cost it an additional 27 to 57 aircraft in imputed losses.

Aircraft have a life span. They are designed with a total number of expected flight hours, which are used roughly evenly over the life of the aircraft and segmented with periodic maintenance and inspection. For example, if an aircraft is designed for 3,000 flight hours with an expected use of 30 years, the aircraft will fly roughly 100 hours per year. If, during an inspection, wear on the plane is found to be more or less than expected, the projected remaining hours are adjusted accordingly. These numbers dictate all sorts of planning, from fuel procurement to ground maintenance to pilot training.

Imputed losses mean that the Russians have burned through more of the expected life span of their aircraft more quickly than anticipated. To make up for it, they’ll have to procure more aircraft, increase maintenance, reduce operations, or accept a smaller force — or some combination of those.

The VKS is still in the process of transitioning from Soviet-era aircraft to more modern platforms, and an estimated 18 to 36 of these newer tactical aircraft join the force every year. Almost half of the VKS force is still upgraded Soviet-era airframes.

While newer Russian aircraft are designed for between 3,500 and 4,500 flight hours, with some as high as 6,000, those Soviet-era aircraft were designed to be in the air only 2,000 to 3,500 hours. Although several platforms, such as the MiG-31, have been upgraded to extend their service life, many of these older planes (Su-24, Su-25, Su-27, MiG-29) are nearing the end of their service lives. These have, at best, 500 to 1,000 hours remaining.

In the first few months of the war in Ukraine, the VKS was flying as many as 150 to 300 sorties per day — compared with the peacetime rate of roughly 60 per day. Even dropping to 100 sorties a day since, the VKS has basically flown double its normal annual hours since the beginning of the war.

This extra use is, by commonly used measures, equivalent to losing roughly 34 aircraft since the start of the invasion. However, this only captures the losses relative to the life span of newer airframes. Because the older airframes have so few remaining hours, it’s actually equivalent to losing about 57 VKS airframes.

To be clear, the exact composition of the VKS force and the precise age and historical usage of all its airframes are not precisely known. Further, some VKS tactical aircraft aren’t operating in Ukraine; they are either harassing NATO aircraft or being used for training. These sorties are in addition to previously mentioned Ukraine-related sorties and are in excess of the usage calculated above. They are being conservatively excluded from the usage being applied to the total force. These factors likely mean that my estimate of 57 imputed losses is an undercount.

This results in total true losses closer to 187 VKS airframes. Extrapolating this, the VKS will continue to lose 30 to 60 airframes a year from combat, accident and imputed losses.

There are some ways the Russians could mitigate such losses: Conduct more frequent and detailed inspections; increase maintenance; modify flight profiles and how aircraft are rotated; and reduce the hours of training. All those might pare back imputed losses to more like 34 airframes. But these actions are expensive in terms of manpower, time and resources — all of which are likely strained from ongoing conflict.

By the summer of 2024, combat losses and imputed flight hour losses may put the VKS below 75% of its prewar strength. To make up for that, the VKS will need to either increase production, reduce usage or reduce force structure for the next 30 years. Overall, though, that’s not a horrible position to be in.

However, the VKS soon will be facing a very different Ukrainian threat: F-16 fighter jets, more air defenses and cruise missiles.

As the VKS devotes a greater share of its dwindling force to countering those, it will have fewer aircraft left to support Russian ground operations. VKS fighters in the sky will also be less capable, stemming from two years of overuse. This happens even if F-16s fail to score a single air-to-air kill, and an upgraded Ukrainian fighter and air defense threat will score many.

Michael Bohnert is a licensed engineer at the think tank Rand. He previously worked as an engineer at a naval nuclear laboratory.