Lod Airbase

The name Lod Air Base has been used for the military side of Ben-Gurion International Airport, Israel's principal international gateway near the city of Lod in the central coastal plain. Military and civilian traffic shared the airport's runways.[1] A 2014 survey separately listed Lod among eleven military airfields. At a general level, it stated that operational airfields had combat-aircraft shelters and that aircraft maintenance and repair were performed partly at airfields and partly at Israel Aircraft Industries facilities; it did not further identify the Lod entry.[8]

The installation was designated BAH 27, or Air Force Base 27, in Israeli military nomenclature and was located at or beside Ben-Gurion Airport.[2] Its position in the densely populated central region imposed flight-hour restrictions that the relocation to Nevatim was intended to avoid.[9]

The site's documented history begins with Lydda Airport, built by the British Mandatory government in 1936.[3] In the mid-1940s it functioned as a civil aerodrome: the 1945–1946 Survey of Palestine states that the Director of Civil Aviation administered the civil airports at Lydda and Haifa and was responsible for ground organization and related services.[10] A Library of Congress photograph dated between 1934 and 1939 shows the Lydda Airport terminal building with a Misr plane and a Palestine Airways plane.[11]

During the Mandate period, Lydda Airport was staffed by Jewish, Arab, and British employees.[12] A 1947 Notice to Airmen issued by the Palestine Department of Civil Aviation included a layout map of the airport together with location and descriptive information, reflecting its established role as a functioning civil aerodrome.[13] The airport also had a military dimension: in a coordinated attack on RAF bases on February 25, 1946, Jewish underground movements destroyed twenty aircraft in total, including several RAF Ansons stationed at Lod airport. The account places the action in the context of RAF support for British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.[14]

As the Mandate drew to a close, Lydda Airport became a site of political tension. After the UN Partition Plan was passed in November 1947, an Egged bus near the airport was attacked and five passengers were killed—described as apparently the conflict's first casualties.[12] By April 1948, as British authority collapsed, airport operations ceased. Accounts differ on the departure of Jewish employees: Zionist sources said they left because the British would not protect them, while an official British account alleged that Jewish staff had disrupted operations by removing eighteen transmitters.[12] Arab forces subsequently took control of the airport and held it for several months.

The IDF captured Lod airport in July 1948 during Operation Danny, an offensive on the central front conducted between July 9 and 18.[15] A small force detached from the main advance toward Lod and Ramle, captured the village of al-Safiriyya, and then seized the airport.[15] Operation Danny's aims included occupying Lod and Ramle, relieving Jerusalem, and removing the threat to Tel Aviv.[15] The operation was commanded by Yigal Alon.[12] A radio technician at the airport broadcast the announcement: "the airport is in our hands! The airport is in our hands!"[12]

Lydda Airport reopened to civilian traffic under Israeli management on November 24, 1948, after radio and telecommunications equipment had been restored.[12] Air France, Czech Airlines, and TWA had counters there, while El Al and Aviron had contracted to use the airport.[12] In the following months and years, the facility received thousands of Holocaust survivors, other immigrants, and tourists.[12]

Passenger traffic reached approximately 115,000 in 1950, exceeded one million by 1970, and reached about five million in 2004.[3] New passenger sections were completed in 1970, and Terminal 3 opened in 2005.[3] The airport served as El Al's home base, and it and Israel Aerospace Industries became important sources of employment for the city of Lod.[3]

The airport's name changed from Lydda Airport to Lod Airport—using the biblical Hebrew form of the nearby town's name—and then to Ben-Gurion International Airport following the death of Israel's first prime minister.[12] The renaming in memory of David Ben-Gurion took effect on January 15, 1974.[16]

During the decades following Israeli independence, the military side of the airport—BAH 27—hosted major elements of the Israel Air Force. All of the force's heavy transport squadrons were based there, and military and civilian traffic shared the runways.[1] During the 1956 Suez-Sinai War, French Mystère fighter squadrons were deployed at Lod air force base and Ramat David while the IAF conducted combat and support missions with fighters, transports, and other aircraft.[17]

Israel Aerospace Industries' Bedek Aviation plant at Lod Airport carried out the serial conversion of the IAF's Super Mystère aircraft to the Sa'ar configuration. The first production Sa'ar was handed to the IAF in December 1969, and the entire conversion program—covering twenty-six aircraft—was completed in early 1973.[18]

The units eventually transferred from BAH 27 to Nevatim included two Hercules transport squadrons, a Boeing squadron, a Gulfstream, or Nashon, squadron, intelligence units, and aerial-rescue units.[2]

On May 30, 1972, three members of the Japanese Red Army, recruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, carried out a terrorist attack at Lod Airport.[19] Twenty-six people were killed and eighty were injured.[19] Airport security was significantly upgraded afterward, with responsibilities divided between the police and Shin Bet.[19]

Plans to relocate BAH 27 from valuable land near Ben-Gurion Airport to Nevatim in the Negev took shape in the early 2000s. In 2004, the Air Force and Ministry of Defense laid the cornerstone for a new base at Nevatim intended to receive the transport wing then located in Lod.[20] Construction was planned to begin in early 2005 and finish by summer 2008, followed by a year of transferring transport squadrons; the Lod base was expected to be vacated and handed over to the state by the end of 2009.[20] The planned construction cost was reported at NIS 1.5 billion, to be funded through marketing the vacated land near Ben-Gurion Airport.[20]

The new Nevatim facilities included operational buildings, residences for base personnel, underground aircraft hangars, an air-traffic-control tower, and a new landing strip designed to give Air Force aircraft greater takeoff and landing flexibility.[4] Hercules and Boeing 707 transport aircraft—also used for aerial refueling and sometimes combat operations—were among the intended occupants.[4] A separate report placed the cost of transferring BAH 27 at NIS 1.62 billion, excluding family benefits, with funding shared among the Finance Ministry, Defense Ministry, and Israel Land Administration.[9]

The move was described as the first relocation of an IDF base to the Negev and effectively doubled the size of Nevatim.[9][2] The new base covered 50,000 dunams and was intended to bring the Air Force closer to southern training areas while freeing it from flight-hour restrictions associated with communities in central Israel.[9] The transfer involved approximately 1,000 soldiers, while many hundreds of aircrew families moved to the expanded base.[9][2]

By December 2014, the Defense Ministry had completed the physical clearance of BAH 27 at Ben-Gurion Airport. About 250 military buildings were removed; some were preserved and relocated to other defense facilities, while others were demolished. The work also cleared approximately 50,000 square meters of asbestos roofing that had been in place for decades.[5] Military operations had moved to Nevatim several years before the physical clearance.[5] The cleared site was divided between Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israel Airports Authority, with the latter expected to use part of the land for civilian aviation activity transferred from Tel Aviv's Sde Dov Airport.[5]

In March 2026, Lod Airbase was described as having closed in 2010.[6] A May 2026 report subsequently stated that the base had reopened and that most US military aircraft then at Ben-Gurion Airport had been moved to Air Force Base 27 as part of preparations related to a possible US-Iran agreement.[7] The available reporting provided little detail about when or how the reopening occurred.