Greece awards contract to Israel’s Defense Ministry for lease several heavy drones

The Hellenic Ministry of National Defense has signed agreements with Israel’s Defense Ministry to lease several heavy unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Israel Defense Forces announced on its Twitter account that IAI Israeli Heron UAVs will be used primarily for border defense.

The agreement, signed digitally by Defense Ministry director general, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Udi Adam and general director for Defence Investments and Armament – Lt.-Gen. (Ret.) Theodoros Lagios (HAF) in light of the coronavirus pandemic, is the first between the two ministries.

Under the deal, the Defense Ministry will lease the Heron unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, made by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries for three years.

“The great security relations between Israel and Greece are expanding. We see great importance in the choice made by Greece to equip its forces with an Israeli system, particularly during the global corona crisis,” said the Head of the International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT), Brig.-Gen. (Ret.) Yair Kulas.

According to local media, the two drones will be used to bolster the country’s intelligence gathering abilities and will act as a deterrent to Turkey, which has deployed drones to the Evros region and Aegean Sea that borders the two countries.

The IAI’s website said the Heron is a multi-role, advanced, long range Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for strategic missions. It is equipped with automatic taxi-takeoff and landing systems (ATOL), satellite communication (SATCOM) for extended range, fully redundant avionics and more.

The Heron TP was designed as a multi-mission platform to address local and international customers’ needs and to perform a variety of strategic missions, including intelligence gathering, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, using various payloads, with a high level of reliability.