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.



Trump Administration Proposes Scrapping UN Peacekeeping Funding 

UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in the Lebanese village of Wazzani near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in the Lebanese village of Wazzani near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Proposes Scrapping UN Peacekeeping Funding 

UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in the Lebanese village of Wazzani near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in the Lebanese village of Wazzani near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, July 6, 2023. (Reuters)

The White House budget office has proposed eliminating funding for United Nations peacekeeping missions, citing failures by operations in Mali, Lebanon and Democratic Republic of Congo, according to internal planning documents seen by Reuters.

Washington is the UN's largest contributor - with China second - accounting for 22% of the $3.7 billion core regular UN budget and 27% of the $5.6 billion peacekeeping budget. These payments are mandatory.

The proposed peacekeeping cuts are included in a so-called "Passback," the response by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to State Department funding requests for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on October 1. The overall plan wants to slash the State Department budget by about half.

The new budget must be approved by Congress, and lawmakers could decide to restore some or all of the funding the administration has proposed cutting.

The State Department was due to respond to the OMB proposal on Tuesday. During US President Donald Trump's first term he proposed cutting about a third of diplomacy and aid budgets. But Congress, which sets the federal government budget, pushed back on Trump's proposal.

"There is no final plan, final budget," State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday when asked about the OMB proposals.

The OMB has proposed ending Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA).

"For example, Passback provides no funding for CIPA, ending contributions for international peacekeeping due to the recent failures in peacekeeping, such as with MINUSMA, UNIFIL, and MONUSCO, and the disproportionately high level of assessments," according to an excerpt from the Passback.

US IN ARREARS

The United Nations peacekeeping budget funds nine missions in Mali, Lebanon, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Western Sahara, Cyprus, Kosovo, between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Abyei, an administrative area that is jointly run by South Sudan and Sudan.

The OMB Passback also proposed the creation of a $2.1 billion America First Opportunities Fund (A1OF), which it said would be used to cover a limited set of foreign economic and development assistance priorities.

"Should the Administration seek to pay any assessments for the United Nations Regular Budget or peacekeeping assessments, we would look to provide that funding from the A1OF," read the OMB Passback.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Tuesday declined to comment on "what appears to be a leaked memo that is part of an internal debate within the US government."

The US owes - for arrears and the current fiscal year - nearly $1.5 billion for the regular UN budget and nearly $1.2 billion for the peacekeeping budget. A country can be up to two years in arrears before facing the possible repercussion of losing its vote in the 193-member General Assembly.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month said he is seeking ways to improve efficiency and cut costs as the world body turns 80 this year amid a cash crisis.