Israel’s announcement comes amid the ongoing “Epic Fury” military operation, a joint U.S.-Israeli strike against military targets in Iran.

In another first, the U.K. reported that its Royal Air Force’s F-35B jets had intercepted Iranian drones above Jordan as part of a defensive mission alongside “Epic Fury,” marking the first targets destroyed by the British warplane type.

The Israeli Version of the F-35 is called “Adir,” which means mighty in Hebrew, and is a fifth-generation stealth fighter jet manufactured by the American defense company Lockheed Martin.

Israel upgraded the jet to its own specifications, including domestically made electronics systems and adjustments to carry and launch Israeli armaments such as the Python 5 air-to-air missile and Rafael’s SPICE bomb.

Israel began receiving its first F-35 aircraft at the end of 2016 — four years after the British received theirs — and currently possesses two dedicated squadrons, totaling at approximately 50 aircraft. In July 2023, Israel placed an order for 25 more to build a third F-35 squadron.

The F-35I has participated in several Israeli military campaigns such as operations “Guardian of the Walls” in June 2021, “Rising Lion” last June and the current military campaign in Iran under its Israeli name, “Roaring Lion.” Since that operation began on Feb. 28, the Israeli Air Force reported that it has dropped about 4,000 munitions so far in about 1,600 raids into Iran.

The Yak-130 aircraft that was shot down by the Israeli Air Force over Teheran is Russian-made and is also used by the Iranian Air Force for reconnaissance purposes.

The type can reportedly be armed with short-range air-to-air missiles. It commonly operates alongside Iranian MiG-29, mainly to intercept drones. The Israeli Air Force notes that the Yak-130 kill is the first time since 1985 that an Israeli fighter jet has shot down an enemy warplane.

Photos and video uploaded to social media show reservists with the Israel Defense Forces operating a trebuchet, a catapult-type tool used in the Middle Ages, throwing fireballs over the concrete barrier separating Israel from Lebanon.

Reservists who recently spoke to the Israeli press on the condition of anonymity said they had been using the weapon since October with the purpose of revealing hidden militant positions and infiltration routes in the thicket bushes near the border. On Oct. 7, the Gaza-based militant group Hamas launched a fatal attack on Israel and took people hostage, with the Israeli government in turn launching a war against the organization in the southern territory.

Guy Stiebel a military archeology expert at Tel Aviv University, who specializes in military archeology and gives lectures as part of an IDF program, said he knows the soldier who helped built the trebuchet and confirmed to Defense News the use of the tool.

“There is a whole field in archeology called experimental archeology, which restores and builds tools such as the trebuchet for research purposes” Stiebel noted. “Among the IDF reserves there is an expert on the period and on this kind of weaponry used then, who found a solution to meet the goals set by his command.”

The weapon’s purpose is to launch beyond fortifications, like that separating the neighboring countries, which Stiebel said can reach 7-9 meters (23-30 feet).

“The trebuchet shown in the pictures is not a particularly large model of the ancient instrument, and its throwing distances were of up [to] about 50 or 60 meters,” he added. “It should be noted that advanced technology cannot always provide solutions, but although there are ancient simple ones that can do the job like the trebuchet, the latter was not been adopted by the Israeli Artillery Corps.”

When contacted by Defense News, the IDF did not deny the existence of the trebuchet nor its use by reservists in the north, but it also declined to comment on the topic.