The Iron Beam laser air-defense system produced by Rafael will be operational before the end of 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday.
Last October, then Defense Ministry director-general Eyal Zamir said Iron Beam would be operational within one year, which would be in about seven months. A confirmation of that schedule, but four months later, is significant, given that many past Israeli predictions have been overly optimistic.
In February 2022, then-prime minister Naftali Bennett said Iron Beam would be operational within one year. His prediction came after the laser passed multiple field tests.
In January 2023, IDF chief of staff at the time Aviv Kohavi told The Jerusalem Post he would be more cautious than Bennett. He predicted that the laser would be deployed to defend against Gazan aerial threats by January 2025.
In August 2023, Rafael chairman Yuval Steinitz said the laser would be ready within one year.
All three of those deadlines have passed, including Bennett’s by more than two years.
A landmark deal
Last October, the Defense Ministry signed a landmark deal worth about NIS 2 billion (more than $500 million) to expand serial production of Iron Beam with lead developers Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems, signaling that the final stages before deployment really were approaching.
Iron Beam is a ground-based, high-power laser air-defense system designed to counter short- to mid-range aerial threats, including rockets, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and cruise missiles.
The system is expected to integrate into Israel’s multilayered defense array as a complementary capability to the Iron Dome system.
This integration will significantly enhance Israel’s defense capabilities against current and future threats while offering substantially lower operational costs, with some estimates as low as $2-$3.50 per laser shot, compared with $40,000-50,000 for an Iron Dome interceptor.
At later stages, the IDF hopes to deploy laser defenses also on IAF jets, but this could take much longer, with vague estimates of an additional five to 10 years.
Katz made his comments about Iron Beam while touring Rafael’s facilities. He complimented the defense-technology giant for its contributions of Iron Dome and David’s Sling to Israel’s air-defense shield.
While the laser is said to be effective against drones as well, the Defense Ministry and the IDF are working on about a dozen other potential solutions to defend against the drone threat, which differentiates it from rockets and missiles.
Katz threatened Israel’s enemies that if they raised their “hand” – i.e., to attack, metaphorically speaking – against Israel, the IDF would have “many tools to strike them back with a decisive blow, [and] this hand will be cut off.”