MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Israel has tested all kinds of new weaponry in the last two years of war. This week, it revealed some of that technology and other weapons it has created for future wars. Despite a global outcry over the huge civilian death toll in Gaza, Israel is selling the tech to other countries. NPR's Daniel Estrin reports from Tel Aviv.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: A lot of the military tech on display this week at an expo at Tel Aviv University looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, like a new high-powered laser that looks like a huge camera lens.
ARI SACHER: This is the turret from our system called Iron Beam.
ESTRIN: Ari Sacher from the Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael. Israel says it will begin to deploy the Iron Beam by the end of the month. The laser can knock rockets, mortars and cruise missiles out of the sky.
SACHER: It takes a very powerful beam of light. We heat the target, we deep fry it, and then (claps hands) the target (imitates explosion) blows up by itself.
ESTRIN: When the Gaza war broke out following a Hamas attack two years ago, the military began using all kinds of new drones for surveillance and targeting. Daniel Almog's company, eyesAtop, provides the Israeli military, the IDF, with handheld screens that soldiers use to coordinate multiple kinds of drones.
DANIEL ALMOG: So that any new drone the IDF wants to introduce, the pilot can fly on Day 1, like a Jedi.
ESTRIN: A screen on display shows a recording of a flight over a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Almog explains what the system can do.
ALMOG: You want to close the kill chain with the single operator. So through our orchestration system, you can call in a kamikaze drone or a strike - a heavy-lift strike drone like this to drop a munition on the target.
ESTRIN: Israel also began using unmanned vehicles on the ground in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, made by a company called Ottopia. They roll into enemy territory, scan and identify targets using AI, and keep the soldier out of harm's way, says founder Amit Rosenzweig.
AMIT ROSENZWEIG: He or she can drink coffee while using a joystick to control a tank or an APC or whatever it is that he or she needs to control to get the job done.
ESTRIN: Palestinians in Gaza have posted videos like this one, when a person spots a military robot on wheels...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: ...And videos of armored personnel carriers laden with explosives. Again, Rosenzweig.
ROSENZWEIG: Some videos were published where you can see something like a large vehicle, an APC, that that's the purpose of such vehicle is, yes, to go somewhere and explode, not necessarily to take down a building, but maybe take down a bad guy.
ESTRIN: Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, has drawn worldwide criticism, including accusations of genocide, which Israel rejects.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) There is no innovation in a genocidal nation.
ESTRIN: Outside the expo, about 30 Israeli university students and faculty protested. Anthropology professor Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni.
OFRA GOLDSTEIN-GIDONI: The drones - which seems to be very high-tech and great - but basically, using AI, all this clever technology, many people were killed by drones. And the thing is that we are all complicit here in Israel.
ESTRIN: To protest the war, some countries said they would restrict arms sales to Israel. But officials from more than 20 countries attended this Israeli defense expo, organizers say. Israeli Colonel Yishai Kohn says defense exports are soaring.
YISHAI KOHN: In general, Israel's export has been breaking its record for the past three years each year in a row. And we expect that this year will end with a new record, too.
ESTRIN: Israel's Arrow defense system, which countered Iranian missiles this year, was deployed today in Germany, which sees Russia as a growing threat and sees this tech as essential. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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