Boeing will design and produce 25 new fighter jets for the Israeli Air Force under a new contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, reigniting concern about the aerospace manufacturer’s connection to the ongoing violence in Gaza.

The Pentagon said Monday it had awarded Boeing an $8.6 billion contract to build and deliver 25 new F-15IA aircraft for the Israeli Air Force, with an option for an additional 25 aircraft to be included in the order.

Boeing’s F-15 fighter, a twin-engine aircraft, was originally built by McDonnell Douglas in 1969 for the U.S. Air Force. Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997 and has since produced several variants of the F-15 family. Israel is a longtime operator of the Boeing plane, which have seen extensive use in Gaza.

Opponents to Israel's war against Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks have criticized Boeing and other American firms for providing support to the Israeli military and government during the conflict, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinian people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At the University of Washington last spring, activists launched a weekslong demonstration urging the school to cut ties with the aerospace manufacturer and Israel.

Following the new contract, Boeing will produce the fighter jets for the Israeli Air Force in its St. Louis facilities, where the manufacturer completes most of its defense production. The Pentagon expects the work will be complete by the end of 2035.

The deal came just after President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. But the agreement spans administrations. The Biden administration approved a $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel in 2024.

The recent deal to produce new F-15s for Israel was immediately condemned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

“The Pentagon’s decision to funnel billions of American taxpayer dollars and advanced weaponry to the Israeli military is morally indefensible,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.

“This Boeing contract sends a clear message that U.S. defense contractors and foreign governments can profit from Israel’s crimes against humanity without consequence,” he continued. “It is a reward for genocide, paid for by American taxpayers.”

Boeing has long provided military aircraft and support to the Israel Defense Force, dating back to 1948, when the Israeli Air Force flew Boeing’s B-17 Flying Fortress. Israel’s national airline, El Al, operates an all-Boeing fleet and, in 2018, Boeing pledged to help develop Israel’s aerospace industry and train Israel-based suppliers.

Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, Boeing donated $2 million in emergency assistance to support humanitarian response efforts through the company’s charitable trust.

Students and activist groups have criticized Boeing for providing weapons to Israel. In the years since the 2023 attack, local university students have called on their schools to cut ties with the company.

In 2024, students at the University of Washington camped in the Quad for three weeks to protest the school's connection to Israel and Boeing. The protesters urged UW to return a $10 million donation from Boeing, ban the company from recruiting on campus and end study abroad programs to Israel.

The encampment ended after the university agreed to increase transparency around the school’s investments, pursue academic connections with Palestinian universities, fund scholarships for Palestinian students displaced from Gaza and establish a faculty committee to recommend changes to study abroad programs. UW did not agree to cut ties with Boeing.

In May, student protesters at UW were arrested and suspended on two different occasions for storming and occupying a new engineering building. The protesters hung a banner from a second-floor window of the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, renaming it the Shaban al-Dalou Building, after an engineering student who was killed by an airstrike last year in Gaza.

Boeing declined to comment Tuesday, referring questions to the U.S. government.

Washington’s tech giants, including Microsoft, Amazon and Google, have also faced protests and calls to cut ties with Israel. In those cases, employees and activists have urged companies to prohibit the Israeli government and military from using their software programs.

Those protests have led to dozens of arrests and a handful of firings, including about nine employees at Microsoft and one at Amazon.

Microsoft in September disabled some cloud computing services it provided to an Israeli military unit after it found evidence backing up reports that the technology was used to surveil Palestinian civilians.

(This story includes information from The Seattle Times archives.)

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