Nesher production was phased out from 1978 to make way for an improved Mirage derivative that had been planned in parallel, in which the Atar engine was replaced by an Israeli-built General Electric J79 engine, the engine used on the American Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighters.
Вместо французского двигателя Atar 9 Kfir имел двигатель J79 (использовался также на американских самолетах Lockheed F-104 Starfighter и F-4 Phantom II), разработанный General Electric и производившийся в Израиле .