Israel to overlay Iranian drone threat on Biden’s visit

Shortly after US President Joe Biden landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the Israeli military will show him new hardware he says is essential to confront Iran: anti-drone lasers.

While Israel has long been known for its efforts to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, Israeli officials are increasingly alarmed about Iran’s fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

This month the Israeli military said it had intercepted a total of four unarmed drones heading for an offshore gas rig. It said the drones were made in Iran and launched by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is backed by Tehran.

As concerns mount over drone warfare, Israel is hoping the new “Iron Beam” system will secure its skies.

Although not yet operational, the military hardware was described as “groundbreaking” by then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in April.

Presenting such technology to Biden is a strategic move for Israel, which saw Washington approve a billion-dollar package for Israel’s active Iron Dome system in September.

The defense system has been used countless times to intercept rockets fired by militants from the Gaza Strip, controlled by Iran’s ally Hamas.

The Iron Dome costs about $50,000 per launch, while Bennett touted the Iron Beam at $3.50 per launch.

He said the new defense system is “quiet” and can “intercept incoming UAVs, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles.”

Uzi Rubin, a former missile defense systems specialist at the Israel Defense Ministry, said intercepting drones is a major challenge.

“Laser technology will have more capacity against drones than against missiles and missiles,” said Rubin, who works at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

“It will help if we get American funding for the Iron Beam,” he added.

For Israel, a priority of Biden’s Middle East tour is expanding US-backed security cooperation among regional countries with shared hostility to Iran.

The US president will fly to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s main regional rival, after meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Friday.

Saudi Arabia and its neighbor the United Arab Emirates have both been targeted by drone strikes by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2019.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that senior Israeli and US military officials visited Egypt to discuss Iranian drones.

Respondents included the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, both of which normalized ties with Israel in 2020, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which do not recognize the Jewish state.

Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, responded with comments that were widely interpreted as confirmation of the talks.

“We are building our broad partnership with more countries in the region to ensure a safe, stable and prosperous Middle East. This includes air defense, among other things,” said Gantz.

The race to develop UAV arsenals in the region has been described as a “drone revolution” by Washington’s Middle East Institute.

The normalization of ties with the Jewish state has opened “new horizons” for Abu Dhabi’s tech sector, the institute said in March, as Israel “has been at the forefront of the drone industry since the 1980s.”

According to Eyal Pinko, a former Israeli Navy intelligence officer, Israel has anticipated the increasing threat of drones from Iran and its regional proxies.

“Since 2009, there was a consensus among Israeli naval intelligence agencies that Hezbollah’s UAVs would pose a threat to Israeli oil rigs,” said Pinko, a specialist at Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University.

“Iran understood many years ago that drones are force multipliers, a significant platform and relatively cheap,” he told AFP.

Earlier this year, the Israeli military said it had intercepted two Iranian drones loaded with weapons for Gaza militants in March 2021.

Tehran is “positioning itself as a key drone power in the region,” according to an article published by think tank European Council on Foreign Relations.

“The country has built its massive drone fleet over many years largely out of necessity, to compensate for its aging and declining air force, which has been plagued by decades of sanctions,” the May report said.

Its fleet includes the “Gaza” drone, which according to the Iranian news agency Fars can fly for 35 hours.

On Monday, the White House revealed information that Tehran is “preparing to supply Russia with up to several hundred UAVs … on an accelerated schedule” for use in the war in Ukraine.

While Israel is looking to counter the Iranian UAVs with new technology and regional alliances, it may also go on the offensive.

In March, Israeli media said the army had launched an attack on an Iranian site where dozens of armed drones were stored.

But weeks later, Iranian state television broadcast footage of a facility hidden in the mountains: an underground base for dozens of military UAVs.