ISRAEL: The big drill

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A rocket hits a building. It goes through three floors, killing two people and injuring two others. Combined emergency forces arrive, evacuate the casualties, disconnect the gas, extinguish the fire, comb the grounds. The municipal engineer arrives, building blueprints in hand, and studies the damage. The teams are done, barricades are deployed, police tape stretched and the site is sealed off until the appraiser comes to evaluate the damages.

This didn’t happen today. But it could have, which is why it was one of hundreds of scenario simulated by local authorities today throughout Israel in the national civilian defense drill. Codenamed ‘Turning Point 3,’ it is a week-long exercise intended to increase public awareness and preparedness in case of missile attacks, as well as test the efficiency and coordination of the various authorities.

‘Every citizen in Israel should know that in every place in the country, at any time, an emergency can happen,’ said Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilani, overseeing the exercise. Most already know this. Twice in recent years, millions of civilians found themselves quite suddenly confined to bomb shelters and safety rooms for extended periods.

The Winograd Commission that investigated the Second Lebanon War pointed to failures in coordinating between government, military and public; various measures have been taken since, including the establishment of the National Emergency Authority to ensure efficient coordination. The nation has done a lot of homework. Other countries are doing theirs too, as dozens of delegations arrived in Israel this week to observe the exercise and take notes on emergency management.

On Tuesday, the whole population took part in the drill. An air-raid siren sounded throughout the country (except for the communities within 6 miles of the Gaza Strip — they’ve had enough practice) and everyone was instructed to make for the closest safe space within a certain amount of time, depending on proximity to potential launching zones. This ranges from ‘immediately’ to three minutes.

The children in the school of Har Adar had one minute. In those 60 seconds, hundreds of kids poured out of classrooms to their designated safe spaces, teachers aided by the eldest — sixth graders — in fluorescent vests indicating their responsibilities, including fire-response and first aid. Megaphones crackled as a first-grade teacher called the roll over the voices of five classes squeezed under the stairwell. In the bomb shelter, a teacher lifted morale with his guitar; another fanned away the heat with a stack of just-in-case coloring pages, recalling her own childhood bomb-shelter experience during the Six Day War and hoping this is as real as it’s going to get for these children.

All apartments built in Israel since the country was attacked by Scud missiles from Iraq in 1991 contain a reinforced concrete safety room. Most older buildings have a communal shelter, shared by residents in times of emergency. Despite persistent reminders from the authorities — and occasional inspections — many are poorly maintained, cluttered with junk, or worse. One bunch of schoolchildren were hit with such stench that their teachers locked the place right back up again and left. One woman hesitated to venture alone into the dark communal shelter in her apartment building, another found her neighborhood public shelter locked. Others just continued their shopping.

The drill has caused some neighborhood agitation. Despite Israeli leaders emphasizing that the drill, announced months ago, is an internal exercise and not directed against any country, the Lebanese army put its forces on alert. Hezbollah too. (Some are taking the drill too literally. A Hebrew post on an Islamic resistance website asked if the big ‘drill’ was in fact a preparation for a new war, repeatedly using the word for the electrical appliance.)

— Batsheva Sobelman

Top: Yair Fischer, chief community security officer in Har Adar, ‘reports’ a missile hit to his team.

Bottom: Sixth-graders sporting firefighter vests during the drill Tuesday.

Photos by Batsheva Sobelman