@timesofisrael: Military correspondent Emanuel Fabian: Just a few nautical miles west of Haifa, the Israeli Navy’s sixth submarine was approaching Israel’s coast on Thursday morning after a 3,792-nautical-mile (around 8,000-kilometer) voyage over the past 23 days from Germany. At dawn, reporters had boarded a small Defender-class patrol boat and headed out to greet the INS Drakon — or Dragon — on the final leg of her maiden journey to the Haifa Naval Base, where a ceremony was planned in the vessel’s honor. Before we departed the naval base, the military took away all our electronic devices, from cellphones to key fobs, due to security concerns. At 74 meters long and weighing a whopping 2,600 tons, the Dolphin 2-class submarine is the largest and heaviest yet in Israel’s service. Her delivery from Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems’ shipyard in Kiel, Germany, comes after around 12 years of planning, construction, and testing.

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Monday 28 September 2026 04:00:05 GMT