Nevatim Airbase (Hebrew: בסיס נבטים, English: sprouts) (IATA: VTM, ICAO: LLNV), also Air Force Base 28, is an Israeli Air Force (IAF) base, located 15 km east-southeast of Beersheba, near moshav Nevatim in the northern Negev desert.

As early as 1947, a rough runway was built here in the northern Negev Desert for the Sherut Avir, the air wing of the Haganah.

In 1966, an inter-ministerial committee was set up to study the possibility of building an international airport in the Beersheba region, but in practice this issue was not further promoted.

It was reopened in 1983 as a new modern airbase with initially two runways as the result of joint Israeli and US government funding as part of the IAF's redeployment out of its bases in the Sinai after the peninsula was returned to Egypt following the Camp David Accords.

As a reminiscence of this, a Mystère IV jet from that era was placed on a grassy hill near the east gate of Nevatim Airbase, with its nose pointing steeply into the sky (see photo on the far right).

The F-16A jet #243 (see photo in the gallery below) was involved in Operation Opera on 7 June 1981, the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osirak.

[11] After a year-long testing and training phase, Israel officially declared the base's first eight F-35Is operational at the beginning of December 2017.

[13] In July 2019, Nevatim-based F-35Is twice attacked Iranian missile depots located north and northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

At the beginning of 2021, Israel signed a preliminary contract for initially two tanker aircraft; in the medium term, up to eight examples are planned, which are to be delivered from around 2025.

[18][19][20][21] The Nevatim Airbase is also the home base of the so-called Israeli Air Force One, a converted Boeing 767 for international visits by the President of Israel or the Prime Minister.

After Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected as Prime Minister at the end of 2022, the Wing of Zion was finally put into operation in the course of 2023 and made its first official flight in July 2024.

[26] In April 2024 the air base suffered an attack from Iran as part of the 2024 Iran–Israel conflict; according to an analysis of satellite images by Associated Press, there was only minor damage.

[30] The IDF stated: "Tonight's Iranian ballistic missile attack has had no operational impact on the IAF and its ongoing airstrikes against terror targets in both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon".

[32] The IDF said Iranian missiles damaged "office buildings and other maintenance areas" at its air bases but that no soldiers, weapons or aircraft were hit.