The Czech Minister of Defense awarded Israel’s Aerospace Industries and ELTA a contract for the acquisition of eight ELM-2084 Iron Dome Multi-Mission Radars. The deal, valued at app, $125m, was signed in Prague on Thursday. The radars have air surveillance and air defense capabilities.

They will be delivered to the Czech defense establishment over a period ranging from 2021 to 2023 and will be interoperable with Czech and NATO command and control systems.

Israel view the transaction as closing a historic circle. The establishment of the State of Israel 70 years found its new army up against an Arab offensive seriously under-armed. The first guns to reach the IDF in those days were rifles from Czechoslovakia. A variant of the German Bf.109 helped the Jewish state to defeat the invaders  in 1948.