'Gas mask delay a concern as enemies acquire better missiles'
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Defense Ministry to prep mayors for war
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Defense Ministry plans to open a security school for mayors and council heads, to teach them how to manage their cities and districts in the event of a war that includes a missile onslaught on Israel, defense officials said Saturday night.
Defense officials also revealed to The Jerusalem Post that if the Gaza cease-fire falls apart, Hamas will be able to fire rockets 30 kilometers into Israel. This would threaten cities that have yet to come under rocket fire, such as Ashdod and Kiryat Gat.
The security school will be located near Tel Aviv and will open in the coming months. All mayors and regional and local council heads will be required to attend. Other students will include senior department heads in the councils and municipalities.
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i is behind the initiative and according to defense officials, the school will provide the municipal and council officials with the training needed to ensure that their areas of jurisdiction continue to function under fire.
According to a plan drawn up by the newly-formed National Emergency Administration and overseen by Vilna'i, by the end of the year every municipality and council will have drafted and approved a plan for how to run their community during wartime.
In addition, the IDF Home Front Command is to start a course this week to train officers to serve as liaisons to councils and municipalities and to assist mayors and council heads during a war.
"The mayor is the commander of the city and we need to make sure that he or she has all the necessary tools to keep the city running during an emergency," a senior official said on Saturday.
"With Hizbullah building up in the north, Hamas in the south and [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's hateful rhetoric, there can be no doubt as to the threat against Israel," the official said. "All of Israel is within the range of missiles and rockets that are in our enemies' hands."
'Israeli strike against Iran won't work'
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
Israel may be unable to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions with a military strike, given the level of fortification employed by the Islamic Republic to protect its facilities, a Newsweek report quotes Western intelligence experts as saying.
The report was published on-line Saturday, and will appear in the November 3 issue of the magazine.
For an Israeli strike to slow or destroy Teheran's nuclear program, four key sites would need to be hit, the experts said.
However, the effectiveness of the attack would be hampered because Iran built these sites deep underground, and surrounded them with barriers more than 18 meters thick. Such fortifications could only be penetrated by several bunker-buster bombs striking exactly the same spot, the experts told the magazine.
While the sources said that more damage could be achieved by employing nuclear weapons, they told Newsweek it was unlikely Israel would use such weapons. [We say use nuclear weapons to save the Jewish state. This is a higher good than preserving the lives of the people who want to destoys
The magazine also reported about another development that could have implications for efforts to block Iranian nuclear proliferation. According to two Western counter-proliferation officials who talked to Newsweek, a top Iranian-Canadian informant for the German intelligence agency BND was recently arrested by German Customs officers on suspicion that he was illegally shipping missile technology to Iran.
The man, who was code-named "Sinbad," had worked for the BND for 10 years, and supplied the agency with high-quality Iranian government documents while providing Teheran with technology. However, the arrangement did not include the activities for which Sinbad was arrested, and therefore hampered BND efforts to stop the investigation.
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