The Iron Beam laser air defense has not been used by Israel and is not ready for regular use during the current war, the IDF said on Thursday.
The Defense Ministry in December 2025 announced that a new laser air defense system had been rolled out in the field. This admission came despite the fact that various forms of Iron Beam were used to shoot down around 40 Hezbollah drones in the fall of 2024.
The IDF did not explain the discrepancy between its past use and the many announcements about Iron Beam's readiness to much fanfare, versus the statement that it is not being used in the current war and is not mature enough to be fully used.
Rafael, the lead company of multiple defense tech companies involved, including Elbit and others, refused to comment on any problems that Iron Beam might be encountering and referred questions to the Defense Ministry.
The Defense Ministry had not responded to requests for clarification at press time.
Lite Beam announced as operational in 2025
In June 2025, the ministry and Rafael had announced that Lite Beam, a smaller relative of Iron Beam, was operational.
In mid-September 2025, the Defense Ministry announced that Iron Beam was operational and that a full series of batteries would be fanning out across the country to provide cutting-edge new air defense capabilities within the coming months.
Back in June 2025, the ministry already disclosed that Israeli laser defense systems had shot down around 40 Hezbollah drones in October 2024.
If and when it is ready for real, Iron Beam has more power, a longer range, and can be used to defend against a wide array of threats as compared to Lite Beam, a shorter range version of the system.
If and when the laser system gets ready, it can specifically shoot down not only drones, but also missiles, rockets, and mortars, making it far more formidable than if it was only capable of shooting down drones, a relatively slow- moving threat.
In 2025, the ministry and the IDF said they had expected Iron Beam to immediately start reducing the cost of shooting down aerial threats, an issue which has been out of control for Israel during this war, in which tens of thousands of threats have been launched through the air at Israel on six fronts.
Firing Arrow interceptors can cost millions of shekels, Iron Dome interceptors can cost tens of thousands of shekels, but firing the Iron Beam is as cheap as turning a light on.
However, in light of the current setbacks to Iron Beam's deployment, it is unclear when Iron Beam will truly be useful in the field, and even more unclear when it will be deployable in sufficient numbers to start to change the nature of the IDF's air defense.
Some sources have said that any move for Iron Beam to truly move ahead of Iron Dome as the lead short-range air defense could still take a number of years.
Using lasers to defend against long-range threats, such as Iran's ballistic missiles, could take that much longer, some projecting five to ten years or longer.