A former commander of the Israeli Air Force delivered a stark warning Monday, asserting that Israel is on the brink of security challenges “orders of magnitude” more severe than anything seen since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre, and urging immediate national mobilization to confront a rapidly evolving battlefield.

Speaking at Tel Aviv University’s DefenseTech Summit, retired Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel — who later served as director general of the Defense Ministry and now advises the venture capital firm Aurelius Capital — said Israelis must stop viewing the 2023 assault as a template for future conflicts.

“October 7 was a modern war, and a successful one, but we only saw the tasting menu,” Eshel told a packed audience at the event, hosted by the Defense Ministry’s R&D directorate. “The next wars, ours and everyone else’s, will be exponentially more challenging. We must prepare now.”

Eshel described a near-term future in which Israel could face stealth platforms, AI-driven autonomous drone swarms, electronic warfare salvos, directed-energy strikes, complex cyberattacks, and assaults on critical civilian and military infrastructure — all simultaneously.

He warned that the volume and sophistication of incoming threats would dwarf recent Iranian attacks on Israel. On October 1, 2024, Iran launched 181 ballistic missiles, most intercepted by Israeli, U.S., and Jordanian air defenses. A separate barrage in April 2024 included around 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles. Eshel argued that future confrontations would be “a different ball game” entirely.

“Modern armies currently lack effective defensive solutions against these evolving threats,” he cautioned.

Despite soaring global demand for defense technologies, Eshel said private investors remain skittish, spooked by past tech bubbles and failures in the offensive cyber sector. That hesitation, he argued, is unsustainable.

He urged Israel to prioritize mass-produced, affordable, ‘good enough’ offensive and defensive systems — the only way, he said, to keep pace with adversaries deploying cheap, disposable weapons at scale.

Eshel also warned that Israel’s defense export industry will become even more critical as Washington tightens regulations on emerging technologies.

“Israel’s qualitative military edge depends on U.S. support and genuine Israeli innovation. We must extend that edge. This is the moment.”

Eshel’s remarks came just hours after the Defense Ministry confirmed that the IDF will receive its long-awaited Iron Beam laser interception system by the end of the month.

Developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the high-powered laser is meant to complement, not replace, established missile-defense systems like Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow. Capable of shooting down rockets, mortars, and drones at a fraction of the cost of interceptor missiles, Iron Beam has been in development for more than a decade and was declared operational following a series of successful tests in September.

Addressing the summit alongside Eshel, Brig. Gen. Benny Aminov, head of the Defense Ministry’s military R&D unit, said Israel has made a “technological breakthrough” in identifying hostile drones crossing its borders — a growing problem on the Egyptian frontier, where traffickers and terrorists have repeatedly used small drones to smuggle weapons and narcotics.

“We are now working on interception solutions using drone-based systems that enable responses to swarm scenarios,” Aminov said, noting accelerated development of new directed-energy technologies.

The military has acknowledged it has struggled to reliably detect and neutralize small, low-flying drones that often evade conventional air-defense radars.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)