Missile scare: when Nasrallah enters your bedroom

Operation Dawn brought color back to our cheeks, but this illusion could be shattered in the event of fighting in the northern sector.

Millions of Israelis live without standard shielding, and the road to a private safety net is long and excruciating. Is there a solution that will keep us (and our home) alive?

David Rosenthal

11/08/2022

Thursday, August 11, 2022, 1:56 p.m

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On video: Interceptions in Sderot Sky (Walla NEWS system)

Operation Dawn brought color back to the residents of Israel and seemingly provided us with a good reason to be calm - the Iron Dome array, which demonstrated a fantastic interception rate of 96%, largely neutralizes the risk posed by long-range shooting and the rocket array of the local terrorist organizations.

However, our situation is far from benign - Israel, on its inhabitants and buildings, is exposed to the most serious rocket and missile threat it has known since its foundation.

The feeling of security with which we walk around is deceptive.

The psychiatric community is divided on whether this is a collective denial mechanism or whether it is about widespread repression, but one thing is certain: when evil opens upon us from the north, and it is not a question of if, but only of when, many hundreds of buildings will receive direct hits and the smile on our faces will change Very quickly in the spasm of her time.

The threat directed against the 'soft underbelly' - Israel's rear, stems first and foremost from the establishment of the extensive missile and rocket array by Iran and its allies in the Shiite "Crescent of Fire", as Mossad head Yossi Cohen called it, which has been systematically and consistently deployed against Israel for the past ten years in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

According to reliable estimates, among others by the Institute for National Security Studies, this ring encircles Israel with more than a quarter of a million missiles and rockets of various types, with varied ranges and warheads, some of which have a level of accuracy that Hamas can (for now) only dream of.

In an analysis published in the Ecclesiastes forum, it is stated that the goal of this enemy formation is to range the entire territory of the State of Israel during a war with a fire mass of between 1,200 and 3,000 missiles and rockets each day, that is, 20 times on average per day what Israel suffered during the Second Lebanon War.

It is important to be clear, already at this point, that all the experts we spoke with believe that against the scope of these rockets and missiles, which are aimed at millions of households and military and civilian strategic targets in Israel, the State of Israel does not, at the moment, have a sufficient defensive response: "There is absolutely no basis for comparing The threat as we saw it in the last operation to the threat facing us from the direction of Hezbollah. If the GAP fired about a thousand rockets at the Israeli rear in three days, and Hamas has the ability to fire twice as many, then Hezbollah's firepower is ten times greater, both numerically and in terms of the weight of the warheads and accuracy The missiles," states in an interview with Walla Real Estate, Major General Amos Gilad, former head of the security-political division at the Ministry of Defense who served as head of the research division at AMN.

Damage to the house in Sderot in 2020.

The Israeli home country needs to take care of itself (photo: official website, without)

In order for you to understand how serious our situation is, we will dive for the purpose 'only' into the rocket arsenal of the Hezbollah organization.

The numbers and scope of firepower are startling.

Hezbollah's surface-to-surface missile array is mostly made up of the familiar "Katyusha" missiles, made in Russia.

These missiles contain a warhead of up to 20 kg and have a range of 40 km.

Analysts estimate that the organization owns over 20,000 Katyushas.

Alongside this, it is also equipped with thousands of Fajr missiles, which carry a 45 kg warhead and there is a more advanced version of the missile - the Fajr 5, which has a range of 75 km and a 90 kg warhead. But the problem It doesn't end there: Hezbollah also has Syrian-made Khabar missiles and Iranian Zalzal missiles that are in its possession can reach a distance of about 200 kilometers, and carry a warhead of about 600 kilograms. "The significant weight of the rocket makes the Zalzal a serious threat," says a published study Recently on "The Missile Threat",

Bottom line, and according to estimates among security officials: if Hezbollah carries out its threats and makes extensive use of its rocket arsenal, hundreds of missiles will penetrate Israel's air defense system, directly hit buildings and cause enormous damage.

In fact, the reality that will excite us is even more serious: in recent years, Nasrallah has accelerated the equipping of drones and UAVs of various types, including those that carry explosives for ranges of hundreds of kilometers, some of which will be missed by the air defense system. protected, will cause tremendous destruction, and of course damage to human life.

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"If war breaks out there will be a disaster here"

Israel, for its part, hangs its defensive shield against the threat of rockets and missiles on a mix that consists of two layers: the first is active defense through air defense systems such as Iron Dome, a magic wand (David's Slingshot) and the Arrow missile.

The second is passive protection, including fire shelters and shelters. And here lies the big problem for residents and property owners in Israel: the State Comptroller's report, published about two years ago, reveals that about 2.6 million (28%) residents of Israel do not have standard protection near their place of residence.

The auditor's findings do not give rest - more than 600,000 residents who live up to 40 km from the northern border do not have proper protection, of which 50,000 residents live 9 km from the border.

Haim Rokah, head of the Golan Regional Council, who also serves as the chairman of the security committee of the Eastern Galilee Cluster and the chairman of the security committee of the regional councils in Israel, noted that over 50 percent of the houses in the north of the country, including the Golan Heights and the conflict line, are not protected and so are The schools and kindergartens.

His words leave no room for doubt: "

If, God forbid, a war breaks out in the coming years, we are exposed here and there will be a disaster.

The warning time with us is between 0 and 15 seconds and it is completely clear what happens when there is no protection."

In the southern sector, the situation is slightly better, because up to 7 kilometers from the border all residents live near a protected area, but up to 40 kilometers from the border of the Gaza Strip, 232,000 people live without proper protection, about 60,000 of them up to 20 kilometers from the border Furthermore, 2,494 out of 12,600 (20%) public shelters are not qualified, and 3,146 shelters (25% of all public shelters) were defined in the report as having low capacity, so that in fact only 55% of the public shelters in the State of Israel are qualified and can provide the population with protection from missiles.

Last March, an additional dedicated budget of NIS 320 million was approved for the construction of fully funded protected spaces or for the provision of loans to finance self-construction.

As of today, the money has not been transferred.

The infernal consequences that will rain down on us in the next campaign and the severe attribution scenarios, led the State of Israel to launch the "Defender of the North" program, budgeted at five billion shekels over a decade, which was launched more than a year ago.

In phase A, it is supposed to protect 21 settlements adjacent to a fence, most of which do not have protected areas within a warning distance.

But its application falters: as part of an interview with Walla!

Money that was published a few days ago, Moshe Davidovich, the head of the Meta Asher local council and the chairman of the Conflict Line Settlements Forum, clarified that "there is no problem with the budget, but with the actual implementation of the plan."

"There is no basis for comparison."

Major General Amos Gilad (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

In this context, it is also worth mentioning the household expenditure survey data for 2018 carried out by the Central Bureau of Statistics, according to which only 21.7% of the rented apartments include MMD, and 47.7% of the owned apartments. In the rural communities in Israel, 64.1% of the owned apartments include MMD, and in the urban communities only 46.7%.

And what about the solution of using TMA 38 (the national outline plan for the protection of buildings against earthquakes)? It was implemented to a negligible extent, especially in the periphery, and this is due to the lack of economic viability, especially since the plan that is being attacked can strengthen buildings - is supposed to come to an end in October 2022. Bottom line - Of the approximately 800,000 apartments that comply with the TMA conditions built before 1980, only approximately 115,000 apartments are in various planning, execution and occupancy procedures.

In addition, it should be remembered that the TAMA 38 project does not require the addition of MMD at all.

"Ultimately, the State of Israel has limited resources and is required to invest in the right mix of allocating budgets for the benefit of equipping IDF and operational systems, and investing in the creation of protected areas," states Major General Gilad.

As a result of the state's shuffling in the promotion of solutions, many residents of Israel who live in old buildings or detached buildings, decided not to abandon their fate, but to independently promote the construction of a MMD, but then they ran into the wheels of the Israeli bureaucracy and barriers that prevent its installation. On the Home Front Command website appear A long and exhausting list of various regulations and not a few construction specifications, which should be taken into account by anyone who wants to build an MMD.

The process of obtaining the permit takes many months, during which the property owner or tenant is required to use, among others, an architect, land consultant, electrical engineer, etc.

The costs, which are obviously based on the person ordering the work, make the story more expensive by tens of thousands of shekels, which are added to the cost of its purchase and installation, which ranges from 130-160 thousand shekels per square meter. In addition, more than once, due to the need to adapt the building's infrastructure, the cost can soar by tens of thousands of shekels additional, and this if additional works or infrastructure are required for its installation. Beyond that, the consent of 60% of the tenants is required and many times,

These oppose and frustrate the move.

In light of the heavy weight of the concrete slab, it must be anchored to the foundations of the building and create access from it to the building and to the ground, and this already requires complex and expensive engineering work and cooperation from the building's other occupants.

At this point, it should be said to the state's credit that about a year ago, the National Planning and Construction Council approved relaxations in regulation and timetables for approving applications for permits to add MADs. The main barrier that was removed: demolition or training of construction anomalies as a condition for approval of the MAD.

However, despite these eases, reality shows that many still despair of the bureaucratic burden and remain exposed to the rocket threat or avoid it due to the relatively high costs.

"The state left the residents to deal with the shielding problem on their own"

And in the meantime, a certain bright spot that can be pointed out lies in the fact that in recent years, shielding solutions intended first and foremost for the military market have also been made available to the civilian market and provide residents, who lack concrete mortars, with the opportunity to save their lives. and security and was an active partner in national projects, including the protection of dozens of assembly areas and outposts where IDF soldiers stay, the protection of Ramon Airport, Ziv Hospital, bank branches and health insurance funds.

Among its other products, there is also a standard folding protection improvement approved by the Home Front Command: it is a protected steel structure that is installed in an existing room in the house - when during normal hours it hardly takes up space in the room. If necessary, the protection system can be opened and thus create a protected area in the room - Simply, without strenuous work and without the use of physical force. During normal operation, the structure occupies a total thickness of 27 cm

In a conversation with Walla Real Estate, Ofer Caspi, VP of Marketing and CEO of the company, points out that recently there has been a jump in the volume of inquiries: "We receive hundreds of calls a day and carry out dozens of insurance projects throughout the country." According to him, he has witnessed a change in the identity of those who invite and those who are interested. On protection: "In the previous operations, most of the referrals to us were from residents of the south, but this time we are receiving a lot of requests from residents of the center who do not have protection.

We also did a lot of steel shielding for private houses in the central area.

There is no doubt, he adds: "Many realized that their lives depended on it and found the budget to finance it."

"The state fully fulfilled its duty and built a very sophisticated warning and alarm mechanism, but left the residents to deal with the protection problem on their own," notes the mayor with whom we spoke, "the reference scenario that was presented to me and the extent of the estimated damage to hundreds of buildings, just in the city that I lead, is frightening Very much. My heart goes out to the residents."

Mafram's MMD. A private and effective protection solution (photo: Yehcat)

In the bottom line, a senior security official points out: "Don't get confused, the silence from the north could turn into the sound of war drums within a day. It is enough for the IDF to shoot down a Hezbollah member, or harm a Lebanese citizen, so that the organization will be forced to respond, which will draw the IDF into a response from its perspective. From here to rapid deterioration - the distance is short."

And don't live under any illusions, he adds, "The fighting systems against Hamas were child's play compared to the inferno of conscience. Whoever the war with Hezbollah, caught without protection or MMAD, may with a high degree of probability pay for it with his life."

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