Starting from 2022 : the Israeli army adopts the "laser interception" system to repel Gaza rockets Starting from 2022 : the Israeli army adopts the "laser interception" system to repel Gaza rockets

Starting from 2022 : the Israeli army adopts the "laser interception" system to repel Gaza rockets


Starting from 2022 : the Israeli army adopts the "laser interception" system to repel Gaza rockets


In recent months, the Israeli army has urged the security industry to make the air defense system usable, a laser-based system that was scheduled to join the Iron Dome system starting next year. The cost of each laser interception was estimated at a few shekels, compared to 170,000 shekels for each Iron Dome launch. This directive was given after Operation Fences, in which the anti-missile defense system was used to a large extent, and against the backdrop of the political dispute in the United States over the funding of the system, which is estimated at one billion dollars.

The army asked the companies that produce the system to give priority to completing it in the coming months, in an attempt to obtain it in the beginning of 2022 and place it in the Gaza envelope until the middle of next year. The system to be used by the Air Force is designed to integrate the Iron Dome, in use since 2011, with laser technology. According to the security apparatus's plan, the production of three other such systems will be completed by 2024 and will be placed in the south of the country to protect against the rockets of the Gaza Strip.

It is expected that the Iron Dome system will remain in practical use for many years, but due to the high frequency with which missiles were fired at Israel during the days of fighting in the south last May, senior security officers knew that continuing to operate it as a single system to intercept missiles would cost huge sums, and these sums may It affects the continuation of the fighting and the possibility of the IDF's response to the rockets of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The system is funded in part with US funds with a budget approved by Congress. Last month, funding was delayed due to a rift within the Democratic Party that now governs on Capitol Hill when it was taken out of the state budget law at the request of members of the party's progressive wing. The separate bill is now awaiting Senate approval, having secured a bipartisan majority of 420 members of Congress to 9 who voted against it. However, the internal confrontation in Washington made Israel realize that relying on American funding is difficult for the Israeli army, and it will become more challenging in the coming years against the backdrop of political differences in the United States.

In the coming weeks, it was planned to conduct an experiment in the security industries to test the capabilities of the new system. The experiment was postponed for a few weeks in order to improve and adapt the system to the needs conveyed by field authorities, mainly by reducing its size and adapting its interception capability to the targets without endangering the army's forces and objectives.

The combined systems will work, at least in the first stage, to protect the settlements near the border wall with Gaza in order to intercept the rockets before they leave the territory, and before they enter the borders of Israel. With the absorption of the integrated systems, the air defense system is expected to place the existing Iron Dome system at a greater distance from the settlements near the wall in order to provide a response to the threat of long-range missiles.

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