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Israel’s National Emergency Week (May 29-June 2, 2016) was designed to bolster inter-organizational preparedness for a future emergency, based on the lessons learned during the decade since the Second Lebanon War (2006), and to assess how ready are the plans for dealing with an emergency at the national level. As such, much attention was directed to the relations between the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), as the leading agency behind this event, and the other organs involved in dealing with emergency management in Israel: the Home Front Command (HFC), government ministries, local authorities, and other agencies.

The event also marked the end of the prolonged deliberations on the threat scenario subsequently presented to the cabinet. The scenario, which was not published in full, includes several key elements that reflect a revised concept, based on the updated assessments of the defense establishment. Foremost among them:
a) the possibility of a simultaneous two-front conflict with Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south;
b) the combined use of large quantities of high trajectory weapons, primarily statistical, at various ranges, including scattered attacks against population centers; c) the massive pinpointed use of precision guided missiles in salvos  against critical civilian and military strategic targets throughout the country, expected in the opening stage of the future conflict, combined with cyber attacks;
d) offensive attacks against communities near the borders on land (including the use of offensive tunnels), in the air (including the use of unmanned air vehicles), and by sea (which might include attempts to take over localities close to the fence).
Apart from the security threats, the risk map also includes scenarios of severe natural disasters, chiefly as a result of a serious earthquake and/or a tsunami.

Much of the updated reference scenario is not new. Most is known and has been experienced during the frequent conflicts that occurred over the past decade, even if on small and medium scales. At the same time, other components of the scenario are more severe. As such, they reflect recognition that it is necessary to prepare for unfamiliar novel scenarios and update decision makers and the public at large that extreme scenarios can happen, also in the security domain. This, notwithstanding Israel’s greatly improved defense capacity in recent years, with the development and deployment of the multi-layer active defense system designed to provide an adequate response, albeit not a hermetic one, for the threat of high trajectory weapons, from mortars to short and medium range rockets to long range guided missiles.

Of special importance is the new premise that along with the expected familiar risks, which might be realized on a larger scale than in the past, preparations should also be made for a major blitz attack against large and densely populated urban areas. Large scale attacks, causing severe damage in major towns in the depth of the country, are expected to take place in the opening phase of a future conflict, with ongoing barrages of hundreds of rockets and missiles per day. Such strikes could continue for several days. Apart from inflicting more severe damage to people and property than in the past, these heavy ongoing strikes might cause large scale destruction and disturbances to critical infrastructure facilities, such as the electric grid, communication systems, and transportation. This in turn could have adverse affects not only for the emergency routine, to enable controlled functionality during emergency situations, but could also inhibit the efforts by the first responders to provide the needed assistance to the targeted communities.

Such a threat scenario illustrates the need, inter alia, for a new and adequate large scale evacuation plan, different from self-evacuation by people under stress, as has happened several times in Israel, for example, during the 1991 Gulf War. The present threat scenario suggests the need for an orderly predesigned plan, to enable the state agencies to undertake such a complex project, which would necessitate close cooperation and coordination with the local authorities and other stakeholders, including the public at large. A massive evacuation of civilians from their homes is – in any place and under any circumstances, and certainly under fire – a very complicated and challenging task. It obviously requires a government decision, which will not be easy to take, due to the sensitivity of the issues involved from the ethical, political, and organizational aspects. Already following Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, senior defense figures stated that evacuation under fire was not morally unacceptable, and that advance preparations for such an eventuality are indeed necessary. Plans were already made by NEMA (“Guest Hotel,” “Motel”) for the evacuation of up to tens of thousands, mainly from border areas. This relatively limited planning does not meet the needs of the broader scenario, which requires meticulous preparation in various aspects.

This serious challenge raises once again the central question of responsibility and authority for the Israeli home front. It touches upon the delicate subject of the level of decision on the evacuation itself, as well as the responsibility of the local authorities sending their residents away and those receiving them, who are required to provide for their essential needs. It is also clear that any mass evacuation plan requires in-time adjustments to the space and people, as well as repeated drills, physical and logistical preparations, and large allocations of forces and resources, including the recruitment of civilian volunteers. The current system in Israel is not prepared for an unprecedented challenge of such scale.

The gaps between the threat scenario and the existing comprehensive response, especially in critical aspects such as those pertaining to mass evacuation following a strike against an urban area, are probably the basis for the assessment of the level of the Israeli home front preparedness as “mediocre plus.” This assessment, as presented in a press conference by NEMA's ranking executive, bespeaks the realization that the current level of preparedness must be greatly enhanced. This calls for a quantum leap in the level of the home front capacities to respond reasonably to the forecasted threats. This does not only call for further resources; it means first and foremost the need to formulate an agreed security doctrine for the home front, prepare a comprehensive and integrated long range plan for all the agencies involved, strengthen cooperation between the various agencies, and above all, take a decision, to be anchored in legislation, on the question of authority and responsibility for the management of the home front.

Contradictory developments on the division of authority for the home front have recently been reported. On the one hand, the National Security Council has renewed its proposal to transfer the authority for supervising the local authorities with respect to emergency situations from the Ministry of Defense's NEMA to the Ministry of the Interior. On the other hand, an important step has been taken, not in line with the National Security Council proposal, in the form of an “arrangement” between NEMA and the Home Front Command. The essence of this formula is a division of labor between them: NEMA will focus on the coordination of the ministries and their agencies at the national level, while the Home Front Command will focus on managing the occurrences of disruption in the field, from the level of the local authorities down to communities and the public at large. This is important and welcome progress, though still requiring more work to ensure the necessary cooperation between the many agencies operating on the home front. But even with this new development, the yet unsolved issue of authority and responsibility will continue to constitute a key barrier to improved national preparedness for any major emergency, as forecasted by the revised map of national threats.