WORLD AT WAR: 9.16.16 - Israel prepares civilians for threat of 230,000 enemy rockets

Israel prepares civilians for threat of 230,000 enemy rockets

 

 - Yaakov Lappin - http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-prepares-civilians-for-threat-of-230000-enemy-rockets-467816

 

According to latest Home Front Command assessments, 1% of incoming enemy rockets would score direct hits on buildings in Israel.

 

The Home Front Command will hold a national war drill from Sunday until Wednesday, which will include a nation-wide air raid siren on Tuesday evening at 7:05 p.m.

 

The goal of the drill is to train civilians in how to quickly enter safe zones in homes and workplace, in the event of a mass rocket attack on Israel.

 

According to recent assessments within the Home Front Command, in any multi-front conflict, some 95% of all enemy rockets will be light-weight, short-range projectiles that have ranges that do no surpass 40 a kilometer range, and one percent of all incoming threats would score direct hits on buildings.

 

Mass rocket attacks are expected to sew mass disruption and potential casualties in the hundreds in a war involving multiple front, and the Home Front Command has been working with emergency services, government ministries, and local authorities to prepare for such a scenario.

 

The preparations are not an indication in any way of an assessment that a conflict is imminent, but rather, they form standard Home Front Command work during routine times. Keeping basic services running under fire are a central aspect of the Home Front Command's goals. Israel's enemies collectively possess some 230,000 projectiles, more than half of which are in Hezbollah possession in Lebanon.

 

In any full-scale conflict, Hezbollah could fire 1,500 rockets per day, and target central Israel with dozens of long-range rockets per day. The big majority of those would fall in open areas, according to assessments.

 

The Home Front Command is factoring into its preparations the fact that Hezbollah is seeking to obtain a growing number of precision-guided rockets.

 

Cross-border infiltrations by Hezbollah and Hamas in any future conflict would pose significant challenge to the home front, according to plans.

 

The Home Front Command has recently increased the number of areas within the country that will receive rocket alerts, from 265 to 3000, greatly increasing the accuracy of the warning.

 

In recent weeks, the Home Front Command held a drill in which it practiced calling up reservist search and rescue personnel to mock destruction zones. In the event of conflict with Hezbollah, of the 750,000 Israelis who may vacate their homes from northern regions, the state will be able to absorb some 95,000 of them in hotels and kibbutz homes.

 

Regarding the chemical threat, assessments in the Home Front Command are that the strategic threat from chemical weapons has decreased greatly since the Assad regime disbanded its chemical weapons program, but the tactical, pinpoint threat of chemical weapons by ISIS on the border has appeared as a future possibility.

 

As a result, the Home Front Command continues to maintain gas mask production lines, enabling production of protection kits at a moment's notice if needed.

 

 

Is an Israeli-Syrian military conflict on the horizon? - http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-Is-an-Israeli-Syrian-military-conflict-on-the-horizon-467619

 

The firing of two missiles at Israeli aircraft bears witness to the growing confidence of Assad's army.

 

It is still too soon to determine if the Syrian Army's firing of missiles at IAF aircraft before dawn on Tuesday in the Quneitra region signifies a policy shift by the Assad regime in regard to Israeli military activity in the area.

 

This determination can be made if similar fire is carried out the next time the IAF or IDF gunners attack in response to mortar shells or artillery fire that lands in Israeli territory.

 

However, one thing is already clear: The firing of two S-200 surface-to-air missiles was not a coincidence. The Syrian Army released an official statement on the incident.

 

This is the first known instance of Assad's army retaliating to Israeli military activity in Syrian territory since the country's civil war began some five-and-a-half years ago.

 

For the past several years, according to foreign media, the IAF has acted unmolested in Syrian airspace in violation of Syria's sovereignty and the March 1974 Disengagement Agreement that the two countries signed after the Yom Kippur War.

 

The IAF, according to foreign reports, with both fighter jets and unmanned aerial vehicles, has been flying in Syrian airspace in order to take photographs and gather intelligence. On more than ten occasions, the Air Force attacked Syrian Army targets, including some on the outskirts of Damascus: warehouses, factories and convoys bringing advanced weaponry (precision surface-to-surface missiles, anti-aircraft missiles and radar and anti-ship missiles) to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the face of all of these attacks, Assad's army swallowed its pride and did not respond.

 

The Syrian Army did not respond either when Israel shot down a Syrian Sukhoi warplane that neared its border a few years ago.

 

Israel also attacked on several other occasions, according to foreign reports, including assassinations by air strike of senior Hezbollah officials (among them the January 2015 strike that killed Jihad Moughniyeh, the son of former Hezbollah "defense minister" Imad Moughniyeh, and later, arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar in his safe-house in the Damascus suburbs), as well as an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general. This came amid attempts by Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force commander, General Qassem Suleimani, to establish a military infrastructure in the Golan Heights, with Assad's knowledge, to launch attacks against Israel. These alleged Israeli attacks thwarted this plan by the Hezbollah-Iran-Syria axis.

 

In addition, the IDF also responded with artillery fire, rockets and symbolic air strikes against Syrian Army outposts almost every time that errant shells from the fighting between the Syrian Army and rebel groups near the border, "spilled over" and landed in Israeli territory, for the most part not causing injuries or damage.

 

The IDF's responses were measured and were mainly intended to send a message to the regime - the IDF said so expressly in its statements - that no matter what the source of the errant fire was, whether it came from the Syrian Army or the rebels, Israel sees the Assad regime as responsible and the sovereign power in charge of its territory.

 

Up until last night's events, the Syrian Army did not respond. In the most recent episode, it responded forcefully, backed up by an official statement in which it took responsibility. However, the IDF denied the Syrian Army spokesman's claim that the missiles downed an Israeli warplane and drone, and said that the missiles had not even come close to the IAF aircraft.

 

But, it is clear that the missiles were intended to send a signal to Israel that this was not accidental fire ordered by a junior commander in charge of an anti-aircraft battery, but rather, it was the result of orders from the senior command.

 

The incident bears witness to the growing confidence of Assad's army, which is succeeding, for the most part because of Russian help, to expand its control in Syria (which is still only some 30 percent of the territory) and to cement the regime's place as the opposition weakens and ISIS is at the beginning of the end.

 

As the regime's army intensifies its assault on the rebels, including in the Golan Heights, not far from Israel's border, the chances for more errant shells landing in Israeli territory increase. Two additional shells fell on Tuesday afternoon.

 

The IDF is expected to respond, likely with increasing levels of force. If Assad's army decides to retaliate like it did last night, the chances for an escalation of tensions and descent into violence on what has until now been a relatively quiet Golan Heights border also increase, despite the fact that most of the sides involved - Israel, the Assad regime, Russia, and some of the rebel groups - have no interest in heating up the border and sparking a military conflict.

 

 

Will Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalate in December? - Uri Savir - http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/09/israel-will-an-arm-intifada-break-out-in-december.html?utm_campaign=applenews&utm_medium=applenews&utm_source=apple

 

While rumors are floating in the media about a possible Abbas-Netanyahu summit in Moscow or Cairo, in reality, Israeli and Palestinian parties are preparing to consolidate their domestic hard-line positions in order to prepare for a period of deadlock and a possible wider outbreak of violence toward the end of 2016.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is interested in headlines on such a summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to protect himself from American and European pressure to advance the two-state solution and to stop settlement expansion. Under the cover of this upcoming summit, the Israeli government continues to build in the West Bank, undisturbed by the international community.

 

At the same time, both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are preoccupied with fortifying their internal coalitions.

 

In the Palestinian camp, there are voices predicting outbreak of an armed intifada before the end of 2016.

 

For now, Palestinian political energies in the West Bank are focused on the municipal elections slated for Oct. 8 this year, which were recently suspended under Palestinian court order. A senior PLO official in Ramallah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that in the West Bank Fatah should have - when and if elections take place - the upper hand. The official noted that in the Gaza Strip, on the other hand, Fatah feared that Hamas will manipulate the results in its favor, despite the economic crisis. In addition, he alluded that a compromise between Abbas and his bitter enemy former Internal Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan might be in the making, as Al-Monitor has recently reported.

 

In any case, the PLO official said that in 2016, Fatah will be focused on consolidating its power in the Palestinian Authority, as no two-state solution process is possible.

 

In Israel, there is a mirror image. Netanyahu understands that, given the American transition, this is the time to fortify his right-wing base. His main vehicle for this, besides spreading rumors on an eventual meeting with Abbas, is to expand settlement construction and legalize settler outposts. On Aug. 31, the government decided, through the Israeli civil administration in the West Bank, to authorize additional settler units in the Jerusalem area, to retroactively legalize 178 settler units just outside the Green Line and to advance plans for a 234-housing unit project in the Elkana settlement.

 

The US administration was dismayed by this decision. White House press secretary Josh Earnest expressed these sentiments by saying, "This significant expansion of settlement activity poses a serious and growing threat to the viability of a two-state solution."

 

And so, the issue of retroactively legalizing illegal outposts erected by Israeli settlers is greatly distressing. It leaves the expansion of the settlements in the hands of the settlers.

 

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are using this period of international deadlock to consolidate the base of their political support in order to prepare for another year of political stalemate. By focusing on mutual hostilities (as a way of consolidating public support), both parties are most probably leaving the door wide open for the more violent extremist elements on both sides.

 

The PLO official said that much like 1987, with the first intifada breaking out in December that year, "December 2016 could, given the desperation of Palestinian public opinion, witness the beginning of the third intifada." He analyzed this eventuality also from a more strategic political point of view. He, a well-known pragmatist who took part in previous peace negotiations, today believes that an armed intifada, led possibly by Abbas and Dahlan, could be the only way to awaken the international community and the next US administration to the necessity of Palestinian statehood.

 

Concerning this Palestinian threat, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official noted that Israeli intelligence is aware of the growing tendency within Fatah to prepare for an armed intifada: "These are veiled threats. An intifada will quickly turn against Abbas and his corrupted regime," he argued. The Israeli strategy for the last part of 2016 is to emphasize to the United States and the European Union the rejectionist violent nature of the Abbas regime, to defend Israel's national and civilian interests in the West Bank, to curtail the assistance of international aid organizations whose finances are used to arm Hamas and to prepare for the American transition.

 

And so, with none of the sides sincerely contemplating an initiative to break the diplomatic deadlock, the Israeli-Palestine horizon, even in the foreseeable future, is filled with dark clouds of possible violence.