Hundreds of thousands of gas masks issued to Israeli civilians in the months before the Persian Gulf war began would have provided little or no protection in a chemical attack, according to a report by Ze’ev Schiff published Sunday in the daily Ha’aretz.
Schiff, one of Israel’s most respected military affairs commentators, quoted allegations by the state comptroller that about 1.4 million gas masks distributed to the public were unfit for use.
The charge could have serious repercussions for the defense establishment.
Schiff said a warning letter to Defense Minister Moshe Arens from Comptroller Miriam Ben-Porat at the time of the war was kept secret until revealed by Ha’aretz.
Arens and the Israel Defense Force chief of staff, Gen. Dan Shomron, flatly denied the charge Sunday at the weekly Cabinet meeting.
But the Defense Ministry seemed to hedge. It said the 1.4 million figure was inaccurate, but conceded that as many as 860,000 gas masks could have been ineffective.
According to Ha’aretz, the masks supplied to the civilian population had a protective factor of 100, compared with a protective factor of 1,000 in the masks supplied to the IDF and those manufactured in the United States.
The Defense Ministry admitted that gas masks manufactured between 1972 and 1986 offered “reasonable” protection if the user remained inside a gas-proof room and was equipped with atropine, an antidote to poison gas that must be injected on exposure.
Ha’aretz quoted experts who said that approach neglected the chance that people might have been caught outdoors during a chemical attack or that their sealed rooms would be exposed in the event of a direct hit.
Schiff said the entire matter would be discussed shortly by the Knesset’s State Control Committee.
According to Ha’aretz, the comptroller reported that 170,000 gas masks manufactured in Israel years ago were obsolete. Sold abroad, they were repurchased in the emergency at high cost, because there were insufficient masks for the entire population, including Arabs.
Ha’aretz quoted IDF officers as saying the obsolete masks should be replaced immediately.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
