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, Musk Target Tax Enforcers, Rocket Scientists, Bank Regulators for Job Cuts 

US President Donald Trump speaks during signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
US President Donald Trump speaks during signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Trump, Musk Target Tax Enforcers, Rocket Scientists, Bank Regulators for Job Cuts 

US President Donald Trump speaks during signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
US President Donald Trump speaks during signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

President Donald Trump's administration targeted on Tuesday bank regulators, rocket scientists and tax enforcers for dismissal, as a federal judge gave the green light for its unprecedented remaking of the US civil service, at least for now.

With Trump's blessing and praise, tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has swept through federal agencies slashing thousands of jobs since Trump became president last month and put Musk, his biggest campaign donor, in charge of a drastic overhaul of government.

Trump claimed without evidence on Tuesday the endeavor would save "hundreds of billions of dollars" and heaped praise on Musk as a patriot. Musk's team has said it has saved $55 billion so far, less than 1% of the annual $6.7 trillion federal budget.

The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that regulate big business and collect taxes.

Democratic critics in turn have raised concerns that Trump is exceeding his constitutional authority and hacking away at popular and critical government programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.

They complain that Musk has operated as an unchecked freelance operator who has seized access to sensitive government data.

On Tuesday the downsizing extended to NASA, where 1,000 new hires including rocket scientists were expected to be laid off, according to two people familiar with the US space agency's plans. More cuts were deemed possible.

"People are scared and not speaking up to voice dissent or disagreement," said one employee at the 18,000-person agency who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Musk said the complaints were a sign that DOGE was working.

"All we're really try to do here is restore the will of the people through the president and what we're finding is that there's an unelected bureaucracy ... that is implacably opposed to the president and the cabinet," Musk told Fox News in an interview recorded on Friday and aired on Tuesday.

The White House has not said how many people it plans to fire and has given no numbers on the mass layoffs. The information to date has come from employees of federal agencies.

The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the civil service, set a deadline on Tuesday for all government departments to provide a list of probationary employees who have been terminated and those sought to be retained, an OPM spokesperson said.

It remained unclear whether the numbers would be disclosed.

COURT BATTLES

About 20 lawsuits filed in various federal courts challenging Musk's authority have seen mixed results.

In one of the more consequential cases, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Tuesday denied a request to place a temporary hold on DOGE. She instead allowed the campaign to continue while underlying litigation plays out.

But Chutkan raised flags about Musk's authority as an independent operator, writing, "Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight."

Congressional Democrats said oversight committee requests for information had gone unanswered, calls to agency officials were not being returned, and details of new policies essential for constituent casework were difficult to come by.

"This is not normal, at all," one Senate committee aide said about the lack of response.

Trump asserted even more executive authority on Tuesday, issuing an order to rein in independent agencies and claiming presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch except for the Federal Reserve.

The White House identified the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as agencies that "have exercised enormous power over the American people without presidential oversight."

The job-cutting continued apace.

Senior officials at the IRS identified at least 7,500 employees for dismissal, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which oversees banks, said it had fired an unknown number of new hires, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Layoffs were also expected at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which handles flood insurance and disaster response, as well as its parent, the Department of Homeland Security, sources said.

Among the workers swept up in the overhaul of dozens of agencies are those reviewing Musk's brain implant company Neuralink.

Musk's role has raised questions about the fate of at least 20 federal investigations and regulatory actions affecting his business empire, Reuters reported last month.

On Tuesday, Trump said he would not let Musk participate in any space-related government decisions.