Israel’s Ministry of Defense International Defense Cooperation Directorate is expected to put up a fairly strong showing of the country’s current defense industry progress at this year’s Eurosatory defense exhibition, in Paris. Also known as SIBAT, this exhibition began on June 13, and this is the inaugural Israeli pavilion to feature at least 55 local companies.
SIBAT director for Europe and North America, Amira Ilany explains, “Europe is one of the most important markets that we have.” Israel has, recently, noticed a growing global interest in their “cutting-edge technologies”. This makes a lot of sense since the country has three large defense companies: Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and Isreal Aerospace industries.
Ilany goes on to note that the government recognizes small and medium companies “as an important part of ministry’s value system. We deem it of the highest importance to strengthen these innovative industries, and many of them will be participating in the upcoming Eurosatory exhibition.”
It probably comes as no surprise that a major percentage of Israel-based companies on the showroom floor at Eurosatory focus on advanced technologies. This includes popular divisions like artificial intelligence, unmanned platforms, autonomous systems, thermal sights and surveillance technologies, real-time data links, threat identification and targeting system precision, and high-end applications for ground forces.
As a matter of fact, Israel’s political leadership has, very recently, spotlighted a shift towards laser air defenses. Accordingly, the defense industry of Israel, overall, has made a concerted effort to incorporate AI on top of increased investment in target recognition and situational awareness technologies.
Because of this, then, Israeli companies head to Europe—and these kinds of showcases—with a handful of brand new technologies or existing systems with improved capabilities that they have only recently been unveiled.
Some of these innovations are already operational in Israel or are being demonstrated in other foreign markets. Regardless, all of these innovations currently build upon Israel’s recently enacted, multi-year defense plan. This plan is known as Momentum and it focuses on pushing new technology to the front line of war efforts. It also aims to knit together formations via data and communications.
