‘Game changing, cutting-edge’: Israel’s Iron Beam to debut in the field this month

Israel will fully deploy the Iron Beam on December 30, introducing a laser system designed to intercept drones, rockets, missiles, and mortars at high speed.

Defense Ministry research and analysis chief Dani Gold on Monday announced that Israel’s Iron Beam paradigm-shattering laser defense will be rolled out in the field on December 30.

In mid-September, theDefense Ministry announced that Iron Beam was operational and that a full series of batteries would be fanning out across the country to provide cutting-edge new air defense capabilities within the coming months.

Already in June, the ministry and Rafael, the lead company of multiple defense tech companies involved, including also Elbit and others, had announced that Lite Beam, a smaller relative of Laser Dome (formerly known as “Iron Beam,”) was operational.

At the time, the ministry also disclosed that Israeli laser defense systems had shot down around 40 Hezbollah drones in October 2024.

However, Monday’s news signalled the final jumps forward.

First, Iron Beam has more power, a longer range, and can be used to defend against a wide array of threats as compared to Lite Beam.

Second, Iron Beam can specifically shoot down not only drones, but also missiles, rockets, and mortars, making it far more formidable than if it were only capable of shooting down drones, a relatively slow-moving threat.

Third, the announcement means that Iron Beam batteries will be produced and dispersed around the country at scale, as opposed to serving in just one or two locations where their impact would take time to be judged.

The ministry and the IDF expect Iron Beam to immediately start reducing the cost of shooting down aerial threats, an issue that has been out of control for Israel during this war, in which tens of thousands of threats have been launched through the air at Israel on six fronts.

Firing the Iron Beam is as cheap as turning a light on

Firing Arrow interceptors can cost millions of shekels, Iron Dome interceptors can cost tens of thousands of shekels, but firing the Iron Beam is as cheap as turning a light on.

Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram has previously said that Iron Beam will lay the foundation stone to start the process, which will change battle zones worldwide until they are invariably filled with cheaper laser platforms.

Security officials said that Iron Beam also has the capacity to take on barrages of simultaneous aerial threats and is not merely limited to shooting down one or two at a time.

Head of the directorate’s R&D Division, Brig.-Gen. Yehuda Elmakayes previously said that the Knesset already approved an extensive budget two years ago to cover as many Laser Dome batteries as will be needed at this stage of deployment.

In June, IDF M. Sgt. “A” told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview that his time on the laser team protecting the country with this game-changing, cutting-edge system has been “incredible.”

A is a reservist who was stationed in the North to work on how to operate the laser in real combat situations, and who had spent time in the IDF’s air defense units mostly over a decade ago, but returned to assist when the current war broke out.

He said that he and everyone else had to learn how to best operate the laser in real time in the field since it is essentially something that no one has ever done before.

“We received the system, we made adjustments while operating in the field, and we improved with the industry developers [Rafael] after we got a better understanding of what we needed to increase our shoot-down success,” said A.

Although Raytheon in the US, as well as England, Russia, China, Germany, and Japan, are all at various stages of developing laser defense systems, the ministry has said that the Iron Beam is the only one that has moved beyond test firings to actual use in the field.

Defense sources also previously revealed that the new family of lasers could eliminate the need for Israelis to run to bomb shelters versus most aerial threats.

They explained that a major advantage of lasers: Iron Beam, Iron Beam M, and Lite Beam, are that they can shoot down enemy rockets and drones much earlier in the threat process. This means that most of the time no siren warnings or bomb shelters would be necessary.

How does this work?

The reason would be because the light energy of the laser travels much faster than any interceptor in Israel’s arsenal and would already potentially destroy the enemy aerial threat shortly after it launches, and invariably while still in enemy territory.

In fact, because the laser fires so much faster, the IDF will also likely have more chances to hit a target which it initially misses, since it will know it has missed earlier on in the process.

That means that Israelis would likely only hear a siren and need to run to bomb shelters in those rare cases where the laser system missed its target, then likely missed it multiple more times

The Lite Beam is the smallest and most local short range system of Israel’s three laser systems, which can be placed on individual ground forces vehicles and fires a 10 kilowatt beam.

Iron Beam M fires a 250 millimeter 50 kilowatt beam and can be mounted on large trucks for mobility, but cannot be placed as a minor additional system on individual vehicles.

Sources have also indicated that the Iron Beam M is not only generally mobile, but can even be fired while moving.

The full size Iron Beam fires a 450 millimeter 100 kilowatt beam, is designed to remain stationary for periods of time, and cannot be fired while moving. However, it can, with advance planning, be moved around just as Iron Dome batteries, over time, can be moved around.