Israel’s emergency authority said it will need 500 million shekels ($130 million) a year for five years to improve its defenses against the Iran-backed terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, Haaretz reported on Monday.
Israel currently spends about 200 million shekels each year on home front preparedness, beyond the sum included in its defense budget. The funds are divided between the IDF’s Home Front Command and the National Emergency Management Authority.
In June, the prime minister’s cabinet approved a study carried out by the command and the emergency authority on the threats that Israel will likely face in any future war. The report found that Israel may have to withstand weeks of sustained rocket fire from both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah alone could fire 1,500 rockets a day, including long range and precision missiles, at targets all over Israel, according to the study.
One recommendation already adopted by the cabinet is to increase Israel’s gasoline stockpiles in case supplies are cut off in a future conflict. Other suggestions include reinforcing medical facilities against rocket attacks and upgrading the unified communications system used by emergency services. The latter improvement has already been approved but is awaiting implementation.
According to the emergency authority, this extra spending “will greatly bolster home front resilience during a future war in which the civilian population will face threats of a magnitude and intensity it has never before experienced,” Haaretz wrote.
The recommendations were presented by Brig. Gen. (res.) Bezalel Treiber, head of the emergency authority, to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on Sunday.
A report published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) last week noted that Israeli officials believe that the next war with Hezbollah — which has threatened to strike at Haifa, Tel Aviv, and other sites in Israel — has the potential cause “thousands of civilian deaths” in Israel. (This past February, Nasrallah threatened to attack ammonium tanks in Haifa, which could kill tens of thousands of people.)
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research for FDD, explained that Hezbollah’s widely-reported tactic of hiding military assets in civilian areas may also lead to mass casualties. Reports emerged two years ago that Hezbollah was offering reduced-price housing to Shiite families who allowed the terrorist group to store rocket launchers in their homes. An Israeli defense official told The New York Times in May 2015 that the buildup of Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure in southern Lebanese villages meant that “civilians are living in a military compound” and that their lives were at risk. A few days later, a newspaper linked to Hezbollah confirmed the Israeli assessment.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, chief of Hezbollah, boasted in June that all of “its weapons and rockets” come from Iran. Nasrallah’s speech seems to confirm an assurance given to him last August by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that the nuclear deal presented “a historic opportunity” to confront Israel. Iran recently announced that its military spending would increase by 90% in the coming year.
Nasrallah’s comments also call into question assurances made by Secretary of State John Kerry that the U.S. would ensure that Iran could not arm Hezbollah, despite the lifting of nuclear sanctions against Tehran. “Our primary embargo is still in place,” Kerry said at a Senate hearing last year. “We are still sanctioning them. And, I might add, for those things that we may want to deal with because of their behavior, for instance, Hezbollah, there is a UN resolution, 1701, the prevents the transfer of any weapons to Hezbollah. That will continue and what we need to do is make sure that we’re enforcing it.”
While UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed unanimously to end the 2006 war, forbids the arming of Hezbollah, Iran has continued to send the terrorist group weapons and the Security Council has refused to act to enforce the resolution.
[Photo: Telucho / Flash90 ]