The navy has plenty of patrol boats and their use is mainly limited to things like coastguard duties or this sort of thing but the real priority needs to be more missile boats. The most modern missile boats are the now 20 year old SAAR 5 corvette the rest of them are 30+ years and the navy is retiring them but not getting any new boats to replace them despite being promised. First they wantd the US littoral combat ship but that was to expensive. Then they wanted some German stealthy corvettes but an Arab company bought the manufacturer so they canceled that. Then there was talk of making a stretched SAAR 5 in Israel and exporting the design but that collapsed Now they get nothing even though Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran have bigger and more advanced navies. Missile boats are also ideal platforms for missile defense systems because harder to destroy a ship on the move than a land based system. It is shameful the way the navy is treated as If they are just for show. Just once be nice if they got a big piece of the pie rather than 99% of the budget going to the air and ground forces.

somehow, patrolling the oil/gas rigs, lebanon, gaza, and the red sea, sounds ambitious for 3 new boats. allowing downtime for resting the crew and for routine maintenance... somehow one gets the feeling that canceling just one $500 million f-35 would free up enough money to equip the navy with lots more patrol boats!

would even give export income! Israel has to think deep and hard now when they cannot trust the leadership of USA. Israel could sell an export version to lots of places for a decent price, who cannot afford F35. At least they should prepare for it now when they start to get lots of cash exporting energy.