Chemistry and biology experts preparing for a daily attack or chemical attack joined the Corona fight • Five battalions have already undergone disinfection and cleansing of large areas and another hand is leaning • The head of the Dangerous Substances Division is in charge: "We will assist in any mission that is required"

Sealed attire is already ready, their specialty chemicals are in dire need. At the home front, hundreds of fighters from the rescue and rescue unit are able to launch a purification and disinfection mission for sensitive facilities throughout the country - from a nursing home or institution for children with special needs to particularly large areas of an infected city, such as Bnei Brak, where hundreds of patients and many others are still unknown.

In a special compound at the home front command in Ramla, the members of the specialist unit of the hazardous materials industry sit. These are the best experts in the State of Israel, who deal with a variety of particularly threatening scenarios, including a chemical attack on the State of Israel or a biological attack. Nor do they imagine that they would enlist in the war for a new and threatening invisible enemy - the Corona virus that endangers thousands of people in the country, and hundreds of thousands in the world.

Fighters in Disinfectants // Photo: IDF Spokesman

With the outbreak of the crisis, a new unit was established in the IDF, a special unit under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Roman Straltsin, head of the Hazardous Materials Division of the Home Front Command, in order to prepare for the disinfection and purification of areas affected by the Corona virus. Most often exposed in the earthquake and national disaster rescue positions, plus two other reserve battalions, the units are not currently in disinfection, but undergo training to join the effort on command day.This is a huge force aimed at the need to disinfect and purge infected areas. Of the State of Israel and the world Even.

"As part of the Corona virus war, I was tasked with establishing a national purge assemblage that brings together a team of highly knowledgeable experts in the fields we are currently working on. We are the exclusive facilitators of the disinfection and purification mission - both in the military and in the civilian home," explains Lieutenant Colonel Stralzyn. Who deal with these areas, study the subject and produce relevant information that can properly address the war against the virus. This is a unit that has a lot of knowledge, crazy human capital - people who come from different worlds, including professors, who can research and answer the burning questions. "

When a person in Corona is breathing or talking, droplets of saliva come out of his mouth in all directions, landing on surfaces. In order to actually infect a person from the surface of the virus, a certain amount of infection must be present. "No resistance tests have been carried out on all surfaces, but from a survey we have conducted in recent weeks and studies in the world based on the Corona family of viruses, we recognize that there is some resistance to certain surfaces. It can be concluded that a virus can survive on a surface for a few days, and these surfaces want to be answered." .

The IDF identified the crisis in the beginning and began intensive training of the forces, building together with the Ministry of Defense, the Biological Institute and other units a complete Torah from scratch - how to protect the forces, what materials work and what method of work. "We trained regular regiments of the Home Front and reserve battalions that should give response. In the coming days, we will be mobilizing more frameworks that can be answered if needed - so that we can respond to any scenario that does not come. "In fact, says Lieutenant Colonel Stralzyn," It's important to understand that we can't say what we're going for. Every day things change, but we "We can't afford not to be ready, so we have made great forces in case of need. These are hundreds of combatants, both regular and reserve."

The Dawn Battalion of the Rescue and Rescue Brigade has already undergone its first fire baptism in recent weeks as it disintegrates various facilities in which Corona patients were discovered and involving a at-risk population. The battalion commander, Lt. Ido Perkin, says: "Two weeks ago we met with the experts and the command department of the command, and then we did training and began to build our competence and technique. Now our three companies are ready for missions at a moment's notice." The advantage of the rescue units is that the seven warriors and warriors learn how to act during a chemical attack, which makes it possible to do the corona virus training quickly.

So far, battalion fighters and battalion fighters have handled three different instances where different institutions have been disinfected. "We operated in a nursing home and two leaf facilities," says Lieutenant Colonel Perkin. "The disinfection operation is the same, but each of the institutions had to make adjustments - how many people could move, what we needed. In some cases, we helped rearrange the space after disinfection in some cases to maintain the corona. Although our readiness is for a chemical missile to fall, etc., the adaptation to the biological world is short and poignant. "

"We learn from every event - every incident investigated. We sit down with the lumens, the training school and the experts and research in several ways. Command and control of the event, measures - whether the technique and approach are correct and how the process can be streamlined," explains Lieutenant Colonel Stralzyn. At the end, we have to answer every task and for that purpose we also need to choose an appropriate armament - relevant working method and materials. "

"We will assist in any mission that is required," he replies to the question of whether the home front is being sanitized and cleansed of an entire city, such as Bnei Brak, which has a large number of patients. "It should be understood, even if there is a clear infected compartment that not all the city is contaminated and the virus is not everywhere. We do not really need to clean an entire city but specific places where there is a verified patient who can affect the environment. It should be noted that the responsibility for the cleansing is also on the citizen in his home, for example. "If you clean your house with bleach before Saturday, or in the public places, wherever the government's offices or authorities can't respond, or it is too complex, we will need to do so. The Home Front Command will continue to do all the work to help the civilian population."

"This is a new challenge, but the capabilities have been there for a long time, and we continue to learn and improve," says Lt. Peking. "Every time we leave the field, we go out with a commander from the specialist unit, and these are people who know the current enemy well, a unit that understands and knows how to work in the field. The soldiers understand the magnitude of the responsibility, and here, unlike the BAT, the results can also be clearly seen.