A laser is far cheaper as a weapon than a kinetic kill interceptor. Moreover, there are no supply issues to replace interceptors. Iron Beam can work for a thousand hours before any components need to be replaced.

Israel is using its Iron Beam laser defense system in the country's northern region. While Israel still has only a small number of Iron Beam units, the system has been effective against suicide drones and mortar rounds. It has taken some pressure off of kinetic air defenses like Iron Dome and David's Sling.

Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy in Lebanon, basically controls the state. While Lebanon has an army, financed in part by the United States, it is doing next to nothing to stop Hezbollah's operations.

Hezbollah has a large arsenal of short-range missiles and suicide drones, all supplied from Iran. They have unleashed large-scale attacks hitting northern and central Israel. On the plus side, the main Iron Beam units, 100 KW lasers, have been effective working in concert with Israel's kinetic air defenses, where they are fully integrated.

Israel has deployed shorter range units including Iron Beam-M, which is a mobile unit, and Lite Beam, which is mainly used as a drone "dazzler" designed to mess up drone cameras. Separately, Israel has deployed some Iron Beam units on its Sa'ar class corvettes, although these do not appear to be playing any role in the current conflict, at least so far.

Israel also is working on an airborne version of Iron Beam. More about that further on.

Iron Beam's range is around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). However, the range can be reduced, even nearly to zero, on cloudy or rainy days.