Israel Lasers in on Iranian Drone Threat as Biden Visits

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden attend a briefing on the Israel's Iron Dome and Iron Beam Air Defense Systems at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, July 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden attend a briefing on the Israel's Iron Dome and Iron Beam Air Defense Systems at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, July 13, 2022. (Reuters)
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Israel Lasers in on Iranian Drone Threat as Biden Visits

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden attend a briefing on the Israel's Iron Dome and Iron Beam Air Defense Systems at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, July 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden attend a briefing on the Israel's Iron Dome and Iron Beam Air Defense Systems at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, July 13, 2022. (Reuters)

Moments after US President Joe Biden touched down in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the Israeli military showed him new hardware it says is essential to confronting Iran: anti-drone lasers.

While Israel has long been known for its efforts to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Israeli officials have increasingly been sounding the alarm over Iran's fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it had intercepted four unarmed drones headed for an offshore gas rig, claiming they were Iranian-made and launched by the Tehran-backed Lebanese party Hezbollah.

As concerns mount over drone warfare, Israel hopes the new "Iron Beam" system will secure its skies.

While not yet operational, the military hardware was described as a "game-changer" in April by then-prime minister Naftali Bennett.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army showed Biden footage of drones being intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system already in place, and the Iron Beam system which uses laser technology.

"It (Iron Beam) will be operational in very few years, it will be on the ground, integrated with Iron Dome," Daniel Gold, head of research at Israel's defense ministry, told AFP.

He said the two systems will "complement each other".

"They will work together, the brain of Iron Dome -- the command and control -- will decide in real time who is going to shoot -- the laser or the missile," he said.

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

Low-cost warfare

Iron Dome has been used countless times to intercept rockets fired by militants from the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Iran's ally Hamas.

The defense system costs roughly $50,000 per launch, while Bennett priced the Iron Beam at $3.50 per deployment.

He said the new defense system was "silent" and could "intercept incoming UAVs, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles".

Uzi Rubin, a former Israeli defense ministry specialist in anti-missile systems, said intercepting drones was a significant challenge.

"The laser technology will have more capacity against drones than rockets and missiles," said Rubin, who is based at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

"It is going to help if we get some American financing" for the Iron Beam, he added.

Integrating Israel into region

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

The US president will fly Friday to Saudi Arabia, following meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Saudi Arabia and its neighbor the United Arab Emirates have both come under drone attack by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi militias since 2019.

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

Upon arriving in Israel on Wednesday, Biden said "we'll continue to advance Israel's integration into the region".

'Significant platform'

According to Eyal Pinko, a former Israeli navy intelligence officer, Israel has been anticipating the rising threat of drones from Iran and its regional proxies.

"Since 2009, there was an understanding among Israeli naval intelligence that Hezbollah's UAVs would be a threat to Israeli rigs," said Pinko, a specialist at Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University.

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

The Israeli military has said that it had intercepted in March 2021 two Iranian drones laden with weapons for Gaza fighters.

On Monday, the White House revealed intelligence that Tehran was "preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs... on an expedited timeline" for use in the war in Ukraine.

While Israel aims to counter Iranian UAVs with new technology and regional alliances, it may also be going on the offensive.

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

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



A Week after Catastrophic Earthquake, Focus Turns to a Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Myanmar

Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
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A Week after Catastrophic Earthquake, Focus Turns to a Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Myanmar

Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)

Search teams pulled more bodies from the ruins of buildings on Friday, a week after a massive earthquake rocked Myanmar killing more than 3,100 people, as the focus turns toward the urgent humanitarian needs in a country that was already devastated by civil war.

United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who is also the emergency relief coordinator, was to arrive Friday in an effort to spur action following the quake. Ahead of his visit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the international community to immediately step up funding for quake victims "to match the scale of this crisis," and he urged unimpeded access to reach those in need.

"The earthquake has supercharged the suffering with the monsoon season just around the corner," he said Thursday.

Myanmar authorities said Thursday that 3,145 people had been killed, with another 4,589 people injured and 221 missing, and did not immediately update the figures on Friday.

Britain, which had already given $13 million to purchase emergency items like food, water and shelter, pledged an additional $6.5 million in funds to match an appeal from Myanmar's Disasters Emergency Committee, according to the UK Embassy in Yangon.

Many international search and rescue teams were also on the scene, and eight medical crews from China, Thailand, Japan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia were operating in Naypyitaw, according to Myanmar's military-run government. Another five teams from India, Russia, Laos and Nepal and Singapore were helping in the Mandalay region, while teams from Russia, Malaysia and the ASEAN bloc of nations were assisting in the Sagaing region.

The Trump administration has pledged $2 million in emergency aid and sent a three-person team to assess how best to respond given drastic cuts to US foreign assistance.

On Friday, five bodies were recovered from the rubble in the capital Naypyitaw and the second-largest city of Mandalay, near the epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake March 28, authorities said. The last reported rescue came Wednesday, some 125 hours after the quake struck, when a man was saved from the wreckage of a hotel in Mandalay.

The quake also shook neighboring Thailand, bringing down a high-rise under construction in Bangkok, where recovery work continued Friday. Overall, 22 people have been found dead and 35 injured in Bangkok, primarily from the construction site.

Myanmar´s military seized power in 2021 from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking what has turned into a civil war.

The quake worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.

As concerns grew that ongoing fighting could hamper humanitarian aid efforts, the military declared a temporary ceasefire Wednesday, through April 22. The announcement followed unilateral temporary ceasefires announced by armed resistance groups opposed to military rule.

On Thursday, however, there were renewed airstrikes in Kayah state, also known as Karenni, in eastern Myanmar, according to witnesses.

The military has said that it would still take "necessary" measures against resistance groups, if they use the ceasefire to regroup, train or launch attacks, and the groups have said they reserved the right to defend themselves.