Iron Beam Fully Deployed: Israel’s Enemies Will Be Horrified

The Israelis are constantly working to improve their weaponry, both as to performance and as to cost. The Iron Dome anti-missile system, first introduced in 2006, has been impressive enough, capable of intercepting more than 90% of the missiles launched toward Israel. However, it is expensive: each interception requires the firing of two Tamir missiles. Each Tamir missile costs $40,000, meaning that each interception costs $80,000. But now the Israeli scientists at Rafael and Elbit have developed a high-energy laser system that will reduce the cost of such interceptions to the scarcely believe price of two dollars.

All of Israel’s air defenses including Iron Dome placed on elevated readiness in past 24 hours.

via @shemeshmicha

— Israel Radar (@IsraelRadar_com) January 13, 2026

Israel’s development and possession and use of Iron Beam has a geopolitical significance, for it enhance Israel’s standing on the world stage, and its desirability as a defense partner. More on the military and geopolitical significance of Iron Beam can be found here.

Laser air defense is fast becoming a strategic necessity, and at the moment, Israel sits at the front of that field. Many Israelis are yearning to see a day when countries such as the Netherlands and Spain, which embargoed arms to Israel, inquire about procuring Iron Beam – something that is in no way a fantastical scenario.

Yes, imagine the foreign leaders — the very ones that have been maligning Israel for its supposed “genocide” in Gaza — having to line up and plead with Israel to allow them to buy the Iron Beam interceptor. And it will undoubtedly dawn on them that it’s not only the Iron Beam, but one remarkable advance after another in weaponry, by those Israeli scientists, that they will be needing in the future, and it makes sense to promote closer ties with the Jewish state, and to forget about that nonexistent and almost certainly never-to-exist “state of Palestine.”

Israeli defense exports to Europe surged over the past year, even as diplomatic rhetoric became much more critical. Iron Beam is likely to deepen that paradox.

And not only in Europe. What is true there is also true in the Mideast. Elbit recently signed a contract with a “foreign country” valued at $2.3b. that “centers on a technological system,” Calcalist reported last week.

The French intelligence news site Intelligence Online identified that country as the UAE. That shouldn’t come as a great surprise, since according to Defense Ministry numbers, 12% of the record $14.8b. in arms exports in 2024 went to Abraham Accords countries.

The UAE is the Arab state least hostile to Israel, the state that has been engaged in billions of dollars in trade with the Jewish state, the one Arab state, other than Morocco, that has been eager to buy Israeli weapons….

The Saudis are interested not just in Iron Beam, but in other laser-based weapons that Israel may be developing. And while the government in Riyadh is worried about Saudi public opinion that remains hostile to Israel (the people in the UAE are much less hostile), and thus will want to keep any such purchase from the Zionist entity under wraps, the interest in such Israeli weaponry has not diminished in Riyadh.

If each interception costs just $2-$3 in electricity, while a Hezbollah suicide drone costs anywhere from $150,000 to $500,000, the imbalance is obvious. Over time, the enemy will be paying a much higher price.

“Over time”? Israel’s enemies will at once be horrified at how rapidly a $3 laser burst from an Iron Beam site can take down a short-range rocket or drone costing half a million dollars. After this has happened two or three times, those enemies may stop launching any short-range missiles — the kind that Iron Beam can handle — and instead stick to long-range weapons.

Now Iron Beam is in operation all over Israel. The next demonstration of its efficacy could come at any moment, in response to an aerial volley from Hamas in Gaza, or from Hezbollah in Lebanon, or from Houthis in Yemen. And Iron Beam’s repeated successes will only make several dozen countries, that haven’t been treating Israel very well lately, change their tune, reassert their previous friendship with the Jewish state, and ask if they, too, can be allowed to benefit from the brilliance of Israeli weapons scientists.

From the bottom of our hearts, we who are on the right side of history thank you, Israel, for another breakthrough that, once again, demonstrates the brilliance of your weapons scientists. Thank god we are on the same side.