The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday they were delaying a joint air exercise with the United States that was due to start Tuesday.
The Israeli military said the United States requested a delay of several days to “resolve coordination problems.” The IDF did not immediately elaborate on the nature of these issues.
The aerial exercise, in which F-35 fighter jets were to participate , received special permission from the IDF to be held despite the general ban on international exercises in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
The IDF said the exercise should take place entirely in the air, with no face-to-face meetings on the ground between the two armies.
The F-35 exercise comes weeks after the armies of the United States and Israel suspended two separate exercises due to the coronavirus pandemic, including one of their largest joint exercises, the biennial Juniper Cobra.
The military initially said that the F-35 exercise would begin Tuesday afternoon and last until Thursday afternoon. It was not immediately clear when it would take place.
The military said the exercise was not in response to any specific threat, but was part of its general training program for 2020.
Earlier this month, the IDF canceled the Cobra Juniper exercise, one of the largest international exercises, in which thousands of American and Israeli soldiers were to participate worldwide.
The Israeli army also preemptively canceled an exercise between American paratroopers deployed outside Italy, one of the countries most affected by the disease, and IDF ground forces.
Source: Israelnoticias
