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Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

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Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#521

Post by hersko »

FrinkleFrankle wrote: post #485
LorenPechtel wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You know, both sides can be bad. They're both led by bad people who do bad things and some good things. I've watched the Oct 10th attack videos. They're horrific. I've also watched the videos of civilian buildings in Palestine being have their roofs "knocked on" by a missile, followed shortly after by demolition by additional missiles.. And the Israeli solders dropping grenades on tents.. And the firsthand accounts o…

It's insane to compare Hamas and how they treat their citizens with Israel. Can you name a single thing Hamas has done to mitigate its civilian casualties?

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#522

Post by wat10000 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #520
wat10000 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean communicable diseases, not combat injuries. For example, around 2/3rds of the military deaths in the American civil war were from disease, not combat. I don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine.

> don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine Triage and ambulances come from battle medicine [1]. (Not sure about communicable-disease prevention.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Jean_Larrey

Right, those are relatively minor improvements compared to soldiers no longer dying en masse from typhoid, smallpox, measles, etc. Good improvements to be sure, but not quite as significant.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#523

Post by jameshilliard »

belter wrote: post #490
LorenPechtel wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The defenses they need are against Hamas. Nobody else comes close to Israel in protecting civilians in combat zones. And let's take a critical eye to that data you linked. I'm having a hard time with the filters but we can see enough without: The fatalities are nearly 90% male. That implies that probably 80% are in some fashion combatants or combatant-adjacent. And note that the death toll for the recent war includes…

>> Nobody else comes close to Israel in protecting civilians in combat zones. "Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war" - https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21...

> "Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war"

The way they came up with this 83% figure is insane, they are essentially claiming everyone killed that hasn't been identified as a named fighter in one specific Israeli military intelligence database is assumed to be a civilian, this logic is of course blatantly misleading as one would not expect Israel to have the capability to identify the name of each and every enemy combatant in a war zone. On top of that the total number killed is a figure published by the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry which is well known to have major accuracy issues.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#524

Post by Rakshith »

yoavm wrote: post #462
AbuAssar wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have the audacity to play the victim card for Israil after the whole world -including you- witnessed live and in HD for over two years what they have done to Gaza poeple?

Do you think Israeli civilians shouldn't be able to defend themselves from Hamas' rockets? If yes - why? If not - what exactly is it that you find so problematic with the parent post?

[dead]

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#525

Post by oytis »

kubb wrote: post #104
oytis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Settlements in West Bank are Israel’s great crime.

I didn't mean that Israel doesn't do any crimes, but still the main things that triggers all the rockets, terror attacks etc. is Israel existing. Better defence for Israel will make the region safer, including even for Palestinians

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#526

Post by testing43523 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #404
choult wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Trump's version of Reagan's Star Wars - it's all bluster that we will not see any result of, and it will be quietly shelved by future governments.

Only after billions (trillions?) of dollars have been doled out to favored allies of the President though.

Elon Musk already made a few $B on it so far, but he clearly has sights on $T.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#527

Post by dang »

michaelmrose wrote: post #501
dang wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46452376 .

I think its a great example. If we understand that even folks that voted for and serve what amounts to our generations symbol representation of evil can't simply be murdered without moral cost we might apply that to folks who may have voted for Hamas who are being murdered right now by people who attach no value to their lives. It IS deliberately provocative for a reason.

I hear you, and perhaps if you had included more of this substance in your GP comment, it would have been a little less inflammatory. Hard to say though. You can't bring that particular N-word into a thread like this (or really any internet thread) without having the effect of a gunshot in a chicken yard. It's the commenter's responsibility to mitigate those effects, not set them off uncontrollably.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#528

Post by [deleted] »

elcritch wrote: post #70

Personally I think that defensive technology like this is fantastic. It means that innocent citizens will be protected from constant bombardment or thread of bombardment by cheap mass produced rockets or drones. Israeli civilians have faced bombardment by tens of thousands of rockets from Gaza for the last 20 years [1]. Outside the Middle East there's many areas threatened by combatants with similar cheap missiles. P…

[deleted]

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#529

Post by thrance »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #489
thrance wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop using your thought-terminating clichés about terrorism and look at actual stats: > As of 19 November 2025, over 72,500 people (70,525 Palestinians and 2,109 Israelis) have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including 248 journalists and media workers, 120 academics, and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes…

Some facts about that number: 1) It's the total death toll from all causes, including natural causes. 2) The majority of those "journalists and media workers" were Hamas propaganda people. 3) UNRWA had a higher proportion of it's people identified as terrorists than the population at large. 4) It's what Hamas claimed, without any means of verification. Israel showed about 4k were unquestionably false. Hamas also clai…

1) It's not. In fact, most scholars agree these numbers are way lower than the real one, as those are only the confirmed deaths.

2) Source? The only places where I can read about it are in far right Israeli or American communications.

3) Source? It seems like Israel was interested in labelling UNRWA as a terrorist organization at some point, but there is no evidence to back up their claim. After all, the IDF is known to shoot at journalists and humanitarian aid workers in their strategy to starve Gaza, so it makes sense they would try to discredit the org.

4) I can't find what you're talking about.

I think it would be more honest if you simply stated that you are fine with the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, rather that argue about who started what while ignoring the century that Israel's settler-colonial project has existed. This isn't country vs country, this is well-funded colonizer vs colonyzee. More akin to the American expansion over natives territory. Did native American attacks back then justify the US in killing them all? Of course not. Same thing here.

Hamas's existence is at least explainable (if not excusable) in the light of a Palestinian population that feared for its lives, and was vindicated in the last few years in thinking that Israel was out to kill them all. Because it is.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#530

Post by thrance »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #518
thrance wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you fine with the mass killings of civilian populations in Gaza, yes or no? War is ugly, I'm not trying to make the Palestinians into saints, but the other guy is advocating the insane position that Israel can do no wrong, and that them using excessive force is completely justified. I feel like I'm losing my mind, why is it so hard to say "killing tens of thousands of civilians is barbaric"??

> why is it so hard to say "killing tens of thousands of civilians is barbaric"?? Because it’s not true unless we’re just saying war is barbaric. Which I agree with. But it’s not useful when trying to delineate justified versus excessive force. I agree Israel is using excessive force in Gaza. I also think Hamas is a terrorist organisation that seems committed to continuing to do terrorism. I genuinely haven’t figured…

At some point, you have to call out a genocide for what it is. Many are still quick to rationalize it away, or relay Israeli propaganda about the many killed journalists being Hamas terrorists, or humanitarian aid workers also being Hamas terrorists, or the UN orgs also being Hamas terrorists, etc. You get the gist.

This doesn't excuse any crime that Hamas has committed, but anyone still not calling for Israel to move out of Gaza, in light of the many exactions committed by the IDF, is not engaging in good faith, in my book.

The continued killings of civilian populations in Gaza is vindicating the Palestinians in their belief that Israel is legitimately out to kill them all. Because they are. This in turn will create a new generation of "terrorists" who see violence as the only escape. This is also how Hamas was created.

Israel is interested in cleansing the Gaza strip. Whatever the solution to this cycle of violence is (two states, one state...) it first involves stopping Israel immediately and getting the IDF out of Gaza. There is no equation to balance here.

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