Israel Enters the Era of Laser Warfare

Nov. 28 2023

Last week, for the first time, the IDF shot down a missile fired from Gaza with a “directed-energy engagement system”—in layman’s terms, a laser. This experimental new system, known as the Iron Beam, has been developed to supplement, and perhaps one day to supplant, the Iron Dome. Elliott Abrams explains its significance:

Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system is well known, and it works beautifully: 90-percent effective. But it is expensive: each Iron Dome battery can cost $100 million, and each interceptor costs between $40,000 and $50,000. As Hamas fires its thousands of rockets and missiles at Israel—it’s fired an estimated 10,000 since October 7—the costs of defense mount and the supply of interceptors can run out.

Iron Dome batteries typically have about 60 to 80 interceptor missiles at hand. What if Hizballah or Hamas fires 100 missiles at one location? A laser system overcomes these problems. As long as you have electricity, you have laser beams to fire again and again at incoming threats. Swarms of approaching missiles can’t overwhelm the number of interceptors you have on hand, and there’s no need to worry about resupply—the kind of resupply the United States is now providing Israel.

Today, Israel can be forced to spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to shoot down Hamas rockets that cost $600 each. With lasers, the balance of costs all of a sudden will favor the defender, not the aggressor. . . . No doubt Hizballah and Iran are watching and worrying.

Read more at New York Post

More about: Hizballah, Iron Dome, Israeli Security, Israeli technology

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023