IDF officer says ‘we need to be ready’ as large-scale drill ends

“The homefront needs to be ready, and so do we. Whenever something should happen we all need to be ready, the citizens and the army,” said Training Officer of the Northern Command,
Lt.-Col Yaniv Friedman.

Along with the Homefront Command and RAHEL, all security and various governmental bodies as well as Israel Police and Magen David Adom participated in the drill that ended on Wednesday night.

“The drill became more complicated as days went on, just like we expect war to become,” said Friedman. “We know that there are not only soldiers but also reservists who need to be drilled in order to protect the state of Israel.”

It is the Home Front Command which is responsible for advising the public of any rockets that have been fired from Israel’s enemies and alerting citizens to incoming rocket attacks using sirens and push notifications from their app.

In May, over 4,000 rockets and other projectiles were fired into Israel by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Twelve Israeli citizens were killed and one soldier.

Should a war break out with Hezbollah, tens of thousands of rockets are expected to be fired from Lebanon, with some 2,000 fired towards Israel each day.

The week-long drill with thousands of troops, reservists and government officials, comes on the heels of the military learning from the May fighting between Israel and terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

“There are set regulations in the Homefront Command, and you need to train the people and the systems themselves to make sure that they work when needed in an emergency,” Friedman said.

The drill included simulation of missile attacks from the north, as well as from the south and the east, contending with racial riots within Israel, and widespread cyber attacks on vital infrastructure such as power stations, hospitals, or water infrastructure that could disrupt life. 

Due to the large number of projectiles expected to be fired towards border communities and the continued lack of adequate bomb shelters, the drill also focused on the evacuation of residents of communities that are within 5 km. of the Lebanese border and the absorption of those individuals in other locations in Israel.

The evacuations were simulated while under enemy fire.

Lt. Col. Sagi Baruch, who heads the command’s southern branch, said that the “significant” drill challenged all those taking part in a number of scenarios that the country will face, both in the north and the south during wartime.

“Evacuating civilians during wartime is a very complicated scenario,” said Lt.-Col. Sagi Baruch, who heads the command’s southern branch, adding that every community knows where it will be evacuated to, be it in the center or south of the country.

“The challenge is the north but we expect that terror groups in the south will also want to challenge Israel when something happens in the north, along with violence in civilian areas such as riots on roads and other challenges in mixed cities,” Baruch said.

“We are looking to see if and how all the bodies can work together to provide the right answer,” he said.

Formed in 1992 after the first Gulf War, the Home Front Command is in charge of civil defense and is responsible for readying the country in case of conflict or disaster-be it natural or man-made.

The Home Front Command was criticized for its response during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, which killed more than 160 Israelis. Since then, it has strengthened its units and its liaison units are active in hundreds of municipalities across the country.