Defense Minister Says Israel Aims to Develop Space-Based Kinetic Strike Capability

Defense Minister Israel Katz laid out a broad strategy this morning (Thursday) for confronting Iran, centered on a combination of sustained economic pressure and the development of advanced military and technological capabilities. He made the remarks at the opening of the "Economic Campaign" conference of the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing at the Defense Ministry, attended by senior figures from the intelligence community and the defense establishment.

In his remarks, Katz stressed that the economic fight against the Iranian regime is a central pillar of Israel’s national security. In his words, "The regime in Tehran has spent decades building a regional terror machine based on the nonstop flow of resources to its proxies across the Middle East. Instead of investing the country’s resources in improving the lives of Iran’s citizens, in developing the economy, infrastructure, education, and healthcare - the Iranian regime chose to invest in terror."

The defense minister warned that money flowing into Iran translates directly into expanded military capabilities and stronger terror organizations backed by Tehran: "Every dollar that enters the ayatollahs’ coffers is a dollar that becomes a ballistic missile in Iran, a drone in Lebanon, a rocket in Gaza, and a UAV in Yemen - and every dollar that reaches Iran is a dollar that could find its way to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the rest of its terror proxies." He added that "the economic campaign against Iran is one of the most important battlefronts for the security of the State of Israel," and said the financial pressure on the regime must continue to intensify.

Alongside his focus on the economic battle, Katz also addressed the challenges ahead and pointed to space as one of Israel’s most significant force multipliers. According to him, the advantage of this arena lies in the fact that it reduces the impact of factors such as geographic territory, population size, and strategic depth - areas in which larger countries sometimes have a built-in edge. 

Katz continued: "Space is the place where it doesn’t matter how much land you hold below, it doesn’t matter how large your population is, and it doesn’t matter for many other things." He revealed that he has instructed the IDF to pursue advanced and unprecedented offensive capabilities, making clear that the goal is not only to operate assets in space and defend them, but also to develop the ability to act from there toward Earth: "Not only to be in space, not only to be able to defend what we put there and thwart what others put there - but to operate from there downward: both in disrupting systems, which will happen fairly soon, and also in kinetic strikes."

At the end of his remarks, the defense minister emphasized that Israel is already working to recruit top-level talent in order to achieve the goal, and he set an especially ambitious benchmark: "We are now recruiting the best minds. Today, no country has a capability for strikes from space, and we must be the world-leading country in this capability. If we achieve it, it will guarantee us a tremendous advantage in deterrence, strike capability, destruction, and all the other things against enemies with major resources."