Israel is not prepared for war. It is not prepared for emergencies. It is not prepared to evacuate hundreds of thousands from their homes. It is not prepared to defend the north. Unedited. State Comptroller reports from recent years actually expose the weaknesses of government ministries, the army, and the police in dealing with emergencies.
State Comptroller Meeting with Evacuees from Gaza Envelope and North: "The Government Is Failing to Address the Home Front"
The current comptroller, Matanyahu Engelman, made sure throughout his term to meet with new ministers and submit past reports to them in their area of authority, in the hope that something would change (in the absence of teeth for the comptroller's body except for the audit itself). But it is enough to look at the conduct of government ministries and ministers since Black Saturday to understand that things are handled too slowly and bureaucracy is in control.
In a discussion held yesterday in the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee, just 25 days after the start of the fighting and the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes, complaints were again raised against the way the government is managing this huge project.
Mayors said they themselves financed the evacuation of communities to allow the communities to stay together, but the government has yet to cover expenses, there is no institutional response to the issue of students and school routines in emergencies, and the incident is unfolding without a landlord. The claims were not only voiced by opposition members – there was wall-to-wall agreement.
It turns out that two previous evacuation plans that were crushed under the State Comptroller's wheels due to incompatibility and ability to implement remain in writing, and only two weeks ago an updated evacuation plan was written for the communities in the envelope and the northern border. In yesterday's discussion, MK Shalom Danino of the Likud acknowledged this when he exposed the original Rachel plan to evacuate Kiryat Shmona residents to stay in schools in Tel Aviv and not to hotels.
The ministers, who suffered shock in the first week of the fighting, are slowly recovering. An integrated project to deal with civilian issues in the war was appointed only yesterday, three weeks too late, after the Prime Minister's Office screened candidates on the basis of political commitment.
The gap between the presentations made by Prime Minister Yossi Shelly's Director General to establishment officials and reality is too large, argue those who watched them.
Another issue that was dealt with only yesterday was the establishment of a team in the Ministry of Finance to reduce bureaucratic barriers in order to enable the rapid transfer of funds for the treatment of evacuees. Interior Ministry officials have been racking their heads for weeks in the face of delusional requests from the budget department – changing a line here, updating numbers there – even they didn't understand what Israel was facing.
"The government is failing to deal with the home front. The lack of an economic plan and the lack of a project in the fourth week of the war, in circumstances in which hundreds of thousands of residents of the southern and northern communities were evacuated from their homes – are a significant failure and malfunction that cannot be justified."
Quick and concrete solution, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"The uncertainty hurts the residents of the south and north. There is no room for power struggles at this time. The prime minister and the ministers must urgently get into the thick of what is happening and solve the problems immediately," said not Yair Lapid, but State Comptroller Engelman, during his visit earlier this week to a concentration of evacuees in Tiberias.
Since the fourth day of fighting, Engelman has been on the ground. While he toured Sderot, Eilat, northern settlements and Tiberias, government ministers emerged from the shock with appalling slowness. The treatment is still inappropriate for Israel to be in an ongoing state of emergency. A month has already passed (almost), but in the face of the future, and when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military leadership announce more months of fighting, a quick recovery is the order of the day.
And these are the main points of treatment
1. The economic plan must be improved and meet the diverse needs of the evacuees. At the same time, the projector must manage a kind of "small coffers" for solving concrete problems quickly with evacuees.
Before the CEO of the Community Centers Company, Tal Basaks, who has been given the position of projector, begins work - who will take the coming week on a tour of evacuee centers with a notepad and pen, write down the needs and only then begin to take care of them. Declaring statements is enough, a man of action is required.
Tal in Sachs. Quick and concrete solution, photo: Rami Zaranger – PR of the Society of Community Centers
2. Continue equipping the alert squads quickly. Those emptied by the government are currently equipped by Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. This week, his office purchased 5,000 more weapons from a new supplier, but some say not all of them are ready for an order. You can't take that risk again.
3. Education. Education. Education. Education Minister Yoav Kisch provides a specific but not broad response to the tens of thousands of students spread throughout the country.
Eilat Mayor Eli Lankri raised bags this week on his own initiative for the new students in his city. Others are recruiting computers. In Tel Aviv, classrooms were opened for Sderot evacuees, as well as in Jerusalem. It doesn't work that way. A country at war is supposed to take care of this. If the Ministry of Education cannot provide a response, it should allow budgets and authority to the receiving authorities to manage their problems.
4. Mental health. Since the horrific massacre, dozens of psychologists and social workers have been treating the mentally ill of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on a voluntary basis. The vulnerability is wide-ranging. Children and adults testified that during these three weeks they passed between several caregivers - and there is no integrating factor. Once again.
In the Ministry of Health, the issue falls between the cracks. While the health funds open treatment centers in evacuee centers on their own initiative, the issue of mental health remains community volunteering. This is another omission in the chain. I recommend MK Michal Waldiger, who did right when she resigned from her position as Deputy Minister of Finance at this time, and the issue is close to her heart.
5. Despite suggestions made to the Prime Minister's Office and to the Director General of his office, Yossi Shelly, about appointing a government spokesman to explain the government's actions, this was not done out of extraneous and political considerations. While Netanyahu is busy waging the war, a state official is needed to communicate the state of emergency to the public. The IDF Spokesperson is a great model at this time: articulate, businesslike, compassionate. The citizens of Israel, in the terrible reality forced upon them, deserve a managed government, with quick responses and, yes, someone to see as an address at this time.
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