Iron Beam

On 28 December 2025 Israel's Ministry of Defense handed the first Iron Beam laser systems to the IDF's air defense array. Developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with the ministry's research directorate, and with the laser source made by Elbit Systems, Iron Beam is a 100-kilowatt-class fiber laser. Because the air scatters a single large beam, it fires many small beams and keeps them on the same spot of the target until it burns through. It is meant to destroy rockets, mortar bombs and drones within about 10 kilometers, at a few dollars a shot, against 100,000 dollars or more for a missile interceptor, and it works alongside Iron Dome.

The idea, unveiled in 2014, grew out of THEL, an American-Israeli laser of the 1990s that was too bulky to deploy. In May 2025 Rafael revealed that smaller laser systems had already shot down about 40 Hezbollah drones in October 2024, the first combat use of high-power lasers anywhere. In Hebrew the system was named Or Eitan, "Eitan's Light", for Captain Eitan Oster of the Egoz unit, son of one of its designers, who fell in Lebanon in 2024.