TEL AVIV (UPI) -- The Israeli air force has expanded its strategic air base at Nevatim in the Negev Desert, part of a plan to relocate its main air bases away from the population centers of Israel’s narrow central zone.

Work on extending the base with a third runway began in 2004 and is believed to have been completed in May. At a length of 12,500 feet, the new runway, costing an estimated $400 million, is believed to be the longest in the Middle East.
Nevatim, some 15 miles east of the biblical city of Beersheba, is in the process of becoming a massive complex that will also accommodate the Israeli air force's entire fleet of tanker and transport aircraft.
Nevatim is the base for the Israeli air force's 28th Wing, which includes Squadrons 116 and 140 equipped with 40-50 F-16A/B aircraft. The new runway means that the air force can relocate its entire transport fleet, including 17C cargo jets and KC-130 tankers, eight Boeing KC-707 tankers and five Gulfstream airborne early warning aircraft at the base, which was inaugurated in 1983.
On top of the air force personnel who will be based at Nevatim, the Military Intelligence Corps and Teleprocessing units will be among other service units deployed there. Several operational centers, with unspecified missions, will also be housed at the base.
Other key air bases are Hatzerim, southeast of Nevatim in the Negev, south of Israel's central urban sprawl; Ramon, just north of the West Bank; Ramat David in the Galilee in northern Israel; and Tel Nof near the central city of Rehovot. Tel Nof is a former British Royal Air Force base in Mandate Palestine that lies within the heavily populated central waist of Israel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Tel Nof's air wing includes the 69th Squadron with F15Is. Many of Israel's nuclear weapons are believed to be stored in underground bunkers in or around Tel Nof, where aircraft capable of delivering these weapons have been on 24-hour alert for the last three decades.