In the past two years, Ukrainian cities have become targets for thousands of Iranian ATGMs, primarily of the Shahed 13

Philippine defense media reported that last week, the Philippine Navy conducted live fire testing of its new Spike NLOS short-range anti-ship missile. 

The US Central Command announced the transfer of enough small arms to equip a brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, originating from the thousands of weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition seized in recent years from Iranian shipments to the Houthis in Yemen. The transfer, announced last week, includes 5,000 AK-pattern rifles, RPG-7 rocket launchers, machine guns, and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting yesterday – a rare occurrence on a Sunday – following Iran’s attack on Israel the previous night. The meeting was held at the request of Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan.

“Regional – and indeed global - peace and security are being undermined by the hour.  Neither the region nor the world can afford more war,” said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General.  “Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate. It’s time to step back from the brink.”

The US has been instrumental in thwarting the Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel overnight. But while President Joe Biden has reaffirmed – both by words and by actions – his and his nation’s ironclad commitment to Israel’s safety and security, he is concerned that Israel will act hastily and escalate the situation by retaliating.

During Iran’s attack on Israel overnight, it launched more than 300 drones and missiles. According to the IDF, 99% of the threats were intercepted.

“The Iranian threat was met by the IDF’s aerial and technological superiority, combined with a powerful coalition. Together, the vast majority of the threats were intercepted,” said  IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagary.

We are in the midst of the toughest war since the establishment of the State of Israel, in which women have been revealed as a cornerstone in national defense and resilience – in the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip, on the battlefield, and in vital roles on the home front. Since 2022, Israel has dropped in the global gender index, published annually by the World Economic Forum, from 60th place in 2022 to 83rd place in 2023. The decline is due to the presence of women in government, the public sector, and the business sector.

“AI is everywhere in IAI. It is part of our avionics, communications, and cyber systems. It is employed, for example, in our health monitoring – predictive maintenance for aircraft and satellites. We deal with edge computing, single-agent and multi-agent autonomy, and with creating the manned/unmanned teams that will compose the future battlefield,” explained Dr. Avital Schrift, VP of Core Technologies, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), at the Sparks Innovation Summit in Tel Aviv this morning (Thursday).

The opening session of the Sparks Innovation Summit this morning (Thursday) dealt with one of the most fascinating subjects out there: space, and the opportunities it presents us all, in Israel and beyond. “The State of Israel took a strategic decision in 1888 to develop space independence – and chose IAI to implement this,” said Aviv Kanelbaum, the Business Development and Marketing Manager of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

“Until a decade ago, accessibility to space was only a nation-state thing: only nations could build, launch, and operate satellites in space. Now there is great corporate acceleration, big investment in space, and the amount of downstream applications has been growing significantly. We can no longer think of our lives without relying on space,” said Prof. Dan Bloomberg, VP for Regional and Industrial Development at Ben Gurion University and Chairman of the Israel Space Agency.