Bennett: IDF to introduce laser-based missile interceptor system within a year

The prime minister says that “in about a year,” the IDF will introduce a laser-based interception system to create an anti-missile and anti-UAV protection array, “first as a trial and later in an operational capacity… Initially in the south, and afterward in other places.”

He stresses that the system’s most important contribution will be to change the current reality in which Hamas can fire inexpensive rockets that Israel then intercepts with missiles costing tens of thousands of dollars.

“They will waste a lot of money, and we, very little,” he says.

“This will allow us, in the middle-to-long term, to surround Israel with a wall of lasers that will defend us from missiles, rockets, UAVs and other threats, and in effect deprive the enemy of its strongest card.”

“This new generation of Israeli air defense will also be able to serve our friends in the region,” he promises, days after Iran-backed Houthis fired a missile at the United Arab Emirates while President Isaac Herzog was visiting.