Serbia has agreed to manufacture drones on its territory in partnership with the Israeli defence giant Elbit Systems, a company that has been criticized for years for its role in Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the Serbian media portal Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Elbit Systems will hold a 51% stake in the drone factory, while Serbia’s main state-owned import-export company, Yugoimport-SDPR will hold 49%.
According to documents obtained by BIRN and Haaretz, and two independent sources, the plan is to produce two types of drones, for close-range and long-range missions. One source said the long-range drone is “more advanced” than the Serbian-produced combat-reconnaissance Pegasus.
The drone factory will be located in the industrial zone of Simanovci, about 28 kilometres west of the capital, Belgrade, in a facility owned by the Pink Media group, the company of pro-government Serbian media tycoon Zeljko Mitrovic.
Israel and Serbia already have a well-established partnership in the field of armaments, regional N1 said. The value of ammunition and weapons exports from Serbia to Israel has increased 42-fold since 2023 and reached EUR 114 million at the end of 2025, despite numerous calls by UN experts to halt the sale of military equipment to Israel.
In 2025, Serbia signed a USD 1.64 billion deal with the Israeli defence giant Elbit Systems. The contract is for five years and includes the sale of long-range rocket and artillery systems and a range of drones, including those for tactical and operational use.
In a June 2025 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese named Elbit Systems among a number of companies profiting from “the ongoing genocide” in Gaza, where more than 70,000 Palestinians have died in Israeli military operations since the October 2023 attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas.