The Defense Ministry announced Monday the award of a “huge contract” worth approximately $530 million to several Israeli companies to accelerate the development of the “Iron Beam” anti-aircraft laser system.
This system, which is added to other anti-aircraft defense means already used by Israel, should notably allow the army to intercept drones more effectively.
The latter, widely used by the Lebanese Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah against Israel for a year, have repeatedly escaped Israeli air defense, causing civilian and military victims.
Receive our daily edition for free by email so you don’t miss the best news. Free registration!
“The Ministry of Defense signed a huge contract, worth approximately 2 billion shekels (approximately $530 million) for a significant expansion of equipment for laser interception systems (Iron Beam), with its main developer, the Rafael company, and with the Elbit Systems company,” he said in a press release.
The director general of the ministry, Eyal Zamir, quoted in the press release, specified that the laser anti-aircraft defense system should be “operational within a year”.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is the Israeli authority, an emanation of the Ministry of Defense, responsible for the development of weapons and military technology.
The defense company Elbit, for its part, specified that the ministry had awarded it a contract worth around $200 million as part of the development of the Iron Beam.
At the end of September, Israel announced that it had obtained a new US military aid package of $8.7 billion “in support of Israel’s ongoing military effort”, in open war with Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.
The Ministry of Defense specified that of this total, $5.2 billion had been allocated to improving existing anti-aircraft defense systems as well as an “advanced defense system using a very powerful laser beam in the final stages of its development.
According to the ministry, this system could notably be installed on board a small civilian aircraft to target any flying object, such as “drones, shells, rockets, ballistic missiles”.
Israel has a multi-layered anti-aircraft and anti-missile umbrella, consisting of the Arrow and “David’s Sling” systems specifically designed to intercept ballistic missiles and the “Iron Dome” system, which intercepts shorter-range rockets and missiles.
You are one of our loyal readers
We are glad you read X articles from Times of Israël last month.
This is why we created the Times of Israeleleven years ago (nine years for the French version): offering informed readers like you unique information on Israel and the Jewish world.
Today we have a favor to ask you. Unlike other media outlets, our website is accessible to everyone. But the journalism work we do comes at a price, so we ask readers who care about our work to support us by joining the ToI community.
With the amount of your choice, you can help us provide quality journalism while benefiting from reading the Times of Israël without advertisements.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, editor-in-chief and founder of The Times of Israel
Join the Times of Israel community Join the Times of Israel community Already a member? Log in to no longer see this message
