In the middle of the news that arrive from Gaza over Israel’s, which forces the massive displacement of Palestinians, and Tel Aviv’s plans of how the great real estate business they see in it, a defensive advance: the Israel army has announced that a high -power and low cost laser system, designed to destroy incoming missiles, has successfully completed its tests and will be ready to be used to be used to be used at the end of this year.
As reported on Wednesday by the Ministry of Defense, the system, developed by its Armed Forces and companies Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, has been baptized as Iron Beam (Iron beam) and comes to complete the current systems that defend the country’s heavens -Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow-, which in recent years have intercepted thousands of rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza, Hizbulá from Lebanon, the hutis in Yemen and the regime of the Ayatolás of Iran. Successfully, but also with and that this new device must come to solve.
After years of development, the system was subjected to tests for several weeks in southern Israel, where it demonstrated its effectiveness in a “fully operational configuration”, intercepting rockets, mortars, aircraft and non -manned aerial vehicles (UAV) in various scenarios. The first specimens of the system will be integrated into the country’s aerial defenses before the end of the year, authorities added.
There are already lower -range laser systems in use in the country. Israel confirmed it last June, indicating that the call Little Beam (Little beam), the small relative we reviewed today, had already been acting, both in the front of Gaza and in southern Lebanon: already in October last year he had intercepted 40 drones of Hizbulá. Now he goes further because, says the general director of the Ministry of Defense, Amir Baram, the Iron Beam “Mark a milestone”: “It is the first time that a high power laser interception system reaches full operational maturity,” he claims. The president of Rafael, Yuval Steinitz, said that Iron Beam, built with adaptive optics technology of the Israeli company -world avant -garde -, “it will undoubtedly be a revolutionary system, with an unprecedented impact on the modern war.”
Although there are other countries such as the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Germany or the United Kingdom that are also advancing in similar technologies. That has transcended, they have not reached this level of progress.
The ‘Iron Beam’ of Israel at rest, in an image of the Ministry of Defense.
Why is it valuable
He Iron Beam, With its 450 millimeter beam and 100 kilowatts, it is not valuable only as a complement to the layer of layers that the Israel Army already has, a world reference that Ukraine even asks to protect itself from Russian aerial threats. It covers gaps, but it also provides benefits that their brothers do not have: the main one, the cost.
While each conventional rocket interceptor costs at least $ 50,000, the use of the laser is an almost insignificant expense, especially in front of short -range missiles and drones. “Now that Iron Beam’s performance has been demonstrated, we foresee a significant leap in air defense capabilities thanks to the deployment of these long -range laser systems,” said the ministry. How a source summarizes to the newspaper it will be “as cheap as lighting the light”, because its activation is expected not to pass from five dollars.
The cost of what I was burning on the seven fronts of which Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet always speaks is today an important headache for Israel, which was completely out of control while depending on the interceptors. Those of Arrow Millions of Shekels are worth; those of Iron Dometens of thousands. These, little more than coffee. Therefore, they understand in Tel Aviv, this is only the beginning of an investment that will be planetary, with which the cheap laser is imposed.
Another benefit is that it is not only effective before rockets or drones, which until now was the most common threat to Israel, from Hizbulá or the Palestinian militias of Gaza, but also faces missiles (such as those thrown by Iran, a greater and unknown risk), to mortar already aircraft. “A wide range of operational scenarios,” says Defense. That is why they talk about that expected “significant progress” in the future.
Airplanes unmanned with a threat with a slower movement, but a missile is something seen and not seen, and heavier and more dangerous. Now the laser is supposed to also win the reaction time, reducing the possibility that the projectiles reach the ground and damage the population or its infrastructure.
More: if the batteries of the iron dome, for example, are mobile and you have to be site based on threats, Iron Beam is expected to be “produced and distributed” to “large scale”, throughout the country, so their protection will not be punctual, but national. By its nature, in addition, you can face more than one or two threats at the same time, so it solves another old problem: how to act against swarms, when Israel’s enemies throw massive -projects of projectiles, of all kinds, saturating their aerial defenses. They send so many that, in the end, some sneaks, as has been seen in the multiple recent crises, all sprout after Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023 (1,200 dead, 250 kidnapped) and Israel’s posterior offensive on Gaza (65,000 dead and climbing).
If the laser covers the entire territory, it is faster than an interceptor and attacks diverse and overlapping threats, it is possible that with it it is less necessary for the population to go to the shelters, which jump the alarms, the aforementioned newspaper progresses.
Elbit’s executive director Bezhalel Machlis, said in the note known yesterday that the company works on the development of high power lasers for other military applications, in particular “an airborne laser with potential to strategically transform air defense capabilities.” The system is still improvable.
