Gulf Buyers Sat in Tel Aviv’s First Defense.Tech Expo

Abraham Accords states bought $2.88 billion of Israeli defense equipment in 2025, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on October 1, 2026. That was 15% of Israel’s record export year.

Those names were already on a Tel Aviv stage. Defense.Tech Expo opened February 17, 2026, at Expo Tel Aviv with EDGE Group and 8VC on the program, after a year in which Israel’s Ministry of Defense logged a record $19.2 billion in 2025 export contracts.

EDGE, 8VC and a Tel Aviv Guest List

Stier Group, a Tel Aviv trade-show house, ran the inaugural edition on a budget organizers put at about 2 million shekels. The Israel Export Institute carried a two-day listing at Expo Tel Aviv for February 17-18, 2026, under homeland security, aviation and space. Hours were 10:00 to 17:00. Admission was professional only.

A winter preview of the expo already placed Gulf industry and U.S. defense capital beside Israeli primes. Organizers said nearly 50 companies would exhibit, among them Israel Aerospace Industries, IWI and Israel Shipyards. Elbit Systems appeared on the conference program. Kinetica, an Israeli defense-tech fund, was diamond sponsor. IAI was platinum.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Ran Kochav, former head of the Israel Air Force’s air and missile defense array and a former IDF spokesperson, chaired the conference. Opening-day coverage placed him with Israela Stier and Gil Stier of Stier Group, Foreign Ministry director general Eden Bar-Tal, IAI chief executive Boaz Levy, former IAF commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Amikam Norkin, and Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, the former Italian defense minister and former chairman of NATO’s Military Committee.

NAMES ON THE PROGRAM

• Dr. Chaouki Kasmi: Chief innovation officer at the UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute and president and CTO of EDGE Group, listed for a global defense-tech panel with former Rafael chief executive Yoav Har-Even.
• Rodrigo Torres: EDGE Group president and CFO, listed for an international-collaboration session moderated by Kinetica general partner Frederic Landau.
• Alex Moore: 8VC’s defense partner and a Palantir board member, listed with Levy and Norkin on the global arms race and the European threat map.
• Michael Gale: Group CEO of Abu Dhabi’s Al Liwan Group, listed among Gulf speakers beside the EDGE pair.

Norkin told the hall that Israeli technology is tested in the operational arena, including in Iran. Levy said IAI was pushing Arrow 4 and Arrow 5 through a deep engineering and operational process. The invitation had already framed the floor around combat-proven systems from the recent fighting, dual-use kit, and live demonstrations in an “Innovation Arena.”

EDGE is Abu Dhabi’s defense and technology conglomerate and has worked with Israeli firms. Putting Kasmi and Torres on a Tel Aviv agenda was the Accords relationship in a badge lanyard, not a slogan. 8VC arriving with Moore, Palantir’s first employee, pointed at a second buyer: U.S. funds that now treat Israeli defense startups as a product line.

Abraham Accords States Took 15% of a Record Year

The 2025 contracts closed before the expo opened. The guest list still matched the map. Albert Vidal Ribe, an IISS research associate for Middle East defense industry and procurement, published the defence dividend of the Abraham Accords on October 1, 2026, and counted sales to Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates at $8.8 billion from 2021 through 2025.

IISS put Israel’s global defense exports at $8.3 billion in 2020 and $19.2 billion in 2025, a rise of more than 130% over five years while Israel fought Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran. Known shipments to the three Accords states cluster on unmanned aircraft, counter-drone systems, air defense, electronic warfare, radars and sensors.

SALES TO UAE, BAHRAIN AND MOROCCO

Sales peaked at $3.01 billion in 2022, then fell after the October 2023 Hamas attack, and climbed again as Iranian drone and missile strikes raised UAE demand. IISS also noted a $2.3 billion Elbit Systems contract signed in November 2025 with an undisclosed client, later tied in reporting to the UAE.

What the $19.2 Billion Was Spent On

The Ministry of Defense, presenting the 2025 report with SIBAT director Brig. Gen. (res.) Yair Kulas and director general Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Baram, said the total was a fifth straight annual record and a rise of nearly 30% from 2024. Government-to-government agreements reached about $10 billion, more than half of deal volume. Missile, rocket and air-defense systems led at 29%. Observation and optronics jumped to 22% from 6% a year earlier.

Europe took 36% of 2025 exports, Asia-Pacific 32%, the Middle East and North Africa 15%, North America 13%, and Latin America and Africa 2% each. IISS’s 15% Accords share for 2025 sits on the same percentage as the ministry’s MENA slice for that year, counted on the three Accords partners rather than the wider MENA heading.

Defense exports are a mirror of Israeli strength, ingenuity, and the ability to think differently.

Israel Katz, Defense Minister, 2025 export report

Kulas said the figure shows governments raising procurement budgets and looking at Israeli industry that can supply the IDF in a full campaign while still signing foreign contracts. Baram tied the jump to wartime output, IDF results including Operation Rising Lion against Iran in June 2025, and a ministry reform that eased licensing and opened markets.

UAE, Bahrain and Morocco in the Mix

IISS charts of selected transfers show how that 15% was built. UAE-linked lines in the institute’s research include Rafael’s Spyder medium-range air defense, IAI Barak, Elbit Hermes 900 and DIRCM, DSIT sonar, and Skylock Dome counter-UAV. Morocco’s list runs from Hermes 900 and IAI Harop through Rafael Spike, Elbit Delilah, IAI Barak MX, an Ofeq-13 satellite in 2024, Elbit ATMOS 2000 artillery in 2025, and an unmanned turret in 2026. Bahrain appears with Elbit HUD gear, IAI coastal radar and Drone Guard.

The same research maps industrial ties: EDGE’s 2022 link set, G42 and the Technology Innovation Institute on the UAE side, and Israeli names such as IAI, Elbit, Rafael, D-Fend and BlueBird. Kasmi’s TII title on the Tel Aviv agenda sat inside that diagram, not beside it.

The Same Week, 8VC Wrote Its First Israeli Check

On opening day, 8VC recorded its first Israeli defense-tech investment. Company registry filings put Litevision’s seed at about $8 million, with 8VC, Kinetica, Q-Fund and 10D in the round. Litevision, founded in 2025 in Yokneam Ilit by veterans of IDF intelligence and Rafael, builds electro-optical cameras for small drones.

Alex Moore, the partner who runs Defense for 8VC, sits on boards that include Palantir, Saronic and Epirus. He was in Tel Aviv to talk threat maps with Levy and Norkin while his firm was writing a check into the same sector the hall was selling. Kinetica, which sponsored the show, had Maj. Gen. (res.) Saar Tzur on the agenda as an operating partner and Landau on the collaboration panel.

We’re not investing in this battle. We’re investing in the next one.

Frederic Landau, General Partner, Kinetica, Defense.Tech Expo 2026

That is the other stakeholder. Primes still dominate export volume. Funds now sit in the same pavilion, buying the next camera, autonomy stack or dual-use sensor before a ministry writes a mega-deal. Dual-use firms used the floor that way. Innoviz brought a high-definition LiDAR demo and pitched it as security kit, not only car kit.

French Organizers Closed Israeli Booths in June

Four months after Tel Aviv, Israel did not get a clean European hall. On June 1, 2026, the Ministry of Defense said France had barred official Israeli participation at Eurosatory, banned a national pavilion, and limited Israeli firms to air-defense products, with offensive systems excluded. The ministry called the decision a disgrace that reeked of political and commercial calculation.

WHAT JERUSALEM SAID FRANCE IMPOSED

• Official ban: No Israeli government representatives at the Paris show.
• No pavilion: SIBAT and other state bodies could not open a national stand.
• Product cap: Israeli exhibitors were told to show air-defense kit only.
• Boarding: The ministry said organizers boarded Israeli pavilions overnight, including companies that had already accepted the defensive-only rule.

The ministry called the boarding cynical and discriminatory, and said it aimed to shut out technology proven daily in the Middle East. Smart Shooter, whose CEO Michal Mor spoke in Tel Aviv, was among the Israeli names later caught in the Paris restrictions. The home show in February had no such filter. Urban warfare, weapons, drones and robotics sat on the agenda in Hebrew and English, under Foreign Ministry and Export Institute patronage.

Europe was still the largest 2025 destination at 36%. The share was already down from the prior year’s European weighting, and the June lockout made the Tel Aviv floor look less like a vanity salon and more like a spare sales room.

Signs Inside the Expo Pavilion

The hall was not quiet. Israeli and international activists entered Expo Tel Aviv on February 17 with signs saying genocide is exported from here, and shouted that Israel is an apartheid state. They argued that every foreign delegation was treating the Gaza war as a business opportunity. Police moved a small protest outside.

The argument on the street and the argument in the aisles did not meet. Delegations came for air defense, border sensors, unmanned systems and a look at kit used in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. The protest treated that look as the product. Both things happened in the same building on the same Tuesday.

Foreign coverage of the show after the fact was thin compared with the protest clips. The commercial conversation stayed inside the trade. That imbalance is why EDGE and 8VC on the program still do more work than a claim about “global powers gathering.” The people with money and a procurement problem were named. So were the people at the door.

Stier Group Already Booked April 2027

The 2026 conference closed with a farewell toward the next edition. The official exhibition page now lists April 6-7, 2027 return dates at Expo Tel Aviv, again 10:00 to 17:00. Stier Group’s own highlights film ends on those dates.

FROM ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE NEXT HALL

1. November 2025: Stier Group announces the first Defense.Tech Expo, with ministry and Export Institute backing and a budget of about 2 million shekels.
2. February 17, 2026: Doors open at Expo Tel Aviv; 8VC’s Litevision seed is dated the same day.
3. February 18, 2026: Second day of exhibits and the innovation seminar; the program points at a 2027 return.
4. June 1, 2026: France bars official Israeli participation at Eurosatory.
5. June 15, 2026: Israeli pavilions are boarded at the Paris show.
6. October 1, 2026: IISS publishes Accords export figures, including $2.88 billion in 2025.
7. April 6-7, 2027: Next Defense.Tech Expo, Expo Tel Aviv.

The 2027 hall will open into a market IISS has now measured. Accords states are back above a tenth of Israeli defense exports. U.S. funds have a first Israeli defense-tech mark on the tape. European shows can still wall off a stand. Tel Aviv can still print a badge for EDGE and for a Palantir director on the same morning.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the next Defense.Tech Expo in Tel Aviv?

Stier Group has set April 6-7, 2027, at Expo Tel Aviv, with daily hours of 10:00 to 17:00. The exhibition page groups booths under critical infrastructure, counterterror, law enforcement, defense, homeland security and cyber, and routes space bookings through Stier’s expo desk.

Who runs the company that organizes Defense.Tech Expo?

Stier Group was founded in the early 1970s as an Israeli trade-show producer. Israela Stier is president and Gil Stier is managing director. The firm lists its office at 26A Habarzel Street, Tel Aviv, and says most of its exhibitions are B2B events open to trade visitors only.

How were Israel’s 2025 defense export deals split by size?

The Ministry of Defense said 53% of 2025 agreements were mega-deals over $100 million, 13% fell between $50 million and $100 million, 19% between $10 million and $50 million, and 15% were worth up to $10 million. Radar and electronic warfare were 11% of volume, manned aircraft and avionics 11%, and drones and UAVs 4%.

What did CopterPIX say it supplies to the IDF?

On the official exhibitor list, CopterPIX called itself the sole provider of drones up to 25 kg maximum takeoff weight to the IDF, and said it sells custom multi-rotor aircraft from 150 g to 40 kg. EyesAtop, another exhibitor, said its drone-orchestration software is deployed across most IDF infantry units and has logged more than 300,000 combat flight hours.

Did visitors need to register for Defense.Tech Expo 2026?

Yes. The invitation issued through Stier Group and the Export Institute marked the show as professional admission only and required registration. Contact details on the invitation were Stier Group’s Tel Aviv number +972-3-5626090 and expo@stier-group.com.

IISS has now put a dollar figure on the Accords defense trade that Tel Aviv hosted in February. The next Expo Tel Aviv dates are April 6-7, 2027. EDGE, 8VC and the boarded stands in Paris will still be the test of who can walk in.