Once again air raid sirens wailed throughout Israel on Monday night, as Iraq fired another batch of Scud missiles at the Jewish state.
In what has become an all-too-familiar ritual, Israelis dashed to their chemical weapons-proof rooms, donned gas masks and waited for word about whether the alert presaged another devastating attack or whether it would turn out to be merely another false alarm.
An Israel Defense Force spokesman later announced that “several Scud missiles” equipped with conventional high-explosive warheads had impacted in an unspecified area.
But this time, unlike four of the last six attacks, there were no casualties.
The fear and disruption of ordinary life that has been the lot of urban dwellers since the first Iraqi missiles slammed into Tel Aviv on Jan. 18 has exhausted the populace and raised angry questions.
Some focus on the lack of preparation for attacks the national leadership long expected.
Others challenge the civil defense authorities’ continued reliance on gas-proof rooms, instead of underground bomb shelters, to protect the populace from missiles that to date have carried high explosives, not chemical warheads.
Israelis are asking why densely populated Tel Aviv and Haifa were left naked to missile attack after government and military figures had warned for years that Iraq and Syria possessed longrange missiles and were prepared to use them.
They want to know why the U.S. Patriot missiles, so far the only effective weapon against Scuds, were not deployed and operational in Israel until after the first two Scud attacks caused casualties and extensive damage.
ARENS MAY BE BLAMED FOR PATRIOT DELAY
Sources said former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin did not order Patriots from the Americans years ago because he was shown only the antiaircraft models. The missile-killing versions became operational only since he left office, the sources said.
That leaves his successor, Arens, “on the firing line” for not making sure the Patriot batteries were in place before the Jan. 15 U.N. deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expired.
Observers have pointed out that the Patriots were deployed in Saudi Arabia by then.
Media reports say Arens and the IDF wanted to wait until Israeli crews were trained to operate them. Commentators noted that undertrained Israeli crews were apparently responsible for lessthan-effective Patriot missile launches last week during the Jan. 22 Scud attack on Ramat Gan, the worst to date in terms of casualties and damage.
Viewed in terms of cold arithmetic, the casualties sustained after the more than two dozen Scud firings at Israel have been minimal. More people are killed and injured in road accidents than fell victim to the Scuds in a comparable period of time, analysts say.
Nevertheless, many Israelis are convinced more casualties could have been prevented if civilians had been told to go to underground bomb shelters rather than sealed rooms above ground.
The sealed rooms and gas masks are designed to save Israel from massive casualties in the event of a chemical attack, but they offer little protection against blast, wreckage and shrapnel.
IDF STILL FEARS CHEMICAL ATTACK
The IDF, however, refused again Sunday to review its basic civil defense thesis, which is that the primary danger is still a chemical strike.
Gen. Nachman Shai, the army spokesman, reflected the policy of the IDF high command when he categorically ruled out a proposal that people head for their bomb shelters when the sirens sound or, much worse, move into shelters every night as a matter of course for the duration of the emergency.
He insisted that the sealed rooms remain the best protection, given the higher number of deaths a chemical device could cause compared with high-explosive missile warheads.
The IDF fears shelters would become death traps in case of gas attack unless they have sophisticated air-purifying equipment, which most do not.
Unlike U.S. analysts, Israeli experts are still far from convinced that Saddam Hussein does not have the ability to fit his Scuds with poison gas.
They believe Israel must base its defenses on the chance that a gas-carrying missile could pierce the air force’s airborne and ground-to-air defenses.
At this point, residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa have little choice but to put their doubts to rest and have faith in the army.
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.
