Did Israel use the B-17?

At the start of 1948, before the creation of the State of Israel, the Haganah ordered three Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses in the United States through the operation of American Machal member Al Schwimmer, evading a United States arms embargo during the 1948 Palestine war. Schwimmer, a USAAF flight mechanic in World War II, purchased and delivered the surplus transport aircraft during the second half of 1947 from which the Israeli Air Force's Air Transport Command was eventually formed. According to Bill Norton in his book on the history of the Israeli air force, two B-17s (serial numbers 44-83851 and 44-83753) were acquired for $30,000 from Charles Winters, who used them in his cargo business between Florida and Puerto Rico.

The first three B-17s took off on June 11, 1948. After arriving at Santa Maria in the Azores, they were due to continue on to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, but US authorities were pursuing them and the bombers had to leave in a hurry. The fourth Flying Fortress never reached Israel: at the United States' request, Portuguese authorities grounded it indefinitely in the Azores.

Ray Kurtz, a former B-17 navigator with 31 missions over Europe, was given command of the squadron, made up of an international crew of World War II veterans who volunteered to fight for Israel. On July 15, 1948, one of the B-17s newly joined to the Israeli Air Force flew to Cairo and bombed a residential neighborhood near Qasr al-Qubba in an operation intended to bomb King Farouk's Abdeen Palace; 30 Egyptians breaking their Ramadan fast were killed and a railway line was hit. The B-17s are credited with raising the Israeli Air Force's average bomb load per sortie from 100 kg to 743 kg and with bringing that force into the realm of modern aerial warfare.