Five-day Home Front drill comes to close with mock 'chemical attack'

The nationwide home-front training exercise will end Thursday after five days of rehearsing responses to missile attacks. The operations will end with a simulated strike by missiles with chemical warheads on Afula in the Galilee.

During the week, units practiced evacuating people after mock missile attacks on Jaffa, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. They also responded to a simulated seaborne terrorist assault on a beach in Tel Aviv.

GOC Home Front Command Yair Golan said Wednesday that 90 percent of the local authorities took part in the drill. The authorities that decided not to take part will be briefed, he said.

The Home Front will examine and evaluate all the shortcomings and malfunctions that took place during the siren drill on Tuesday and fix them during the year, he said.

The Home Front Command plans to deploy hundreds of additional sirens throughout the country, Golan said.

He cautioned, however, that a siren could not be provided for every place lacking a transmitter system. In those places, the Home Front Command would warn of an expected missile strike by cellphone text messages or beepers, he added.

In Carmiel's eastern industrial area, the siren could hardly be heard because of the absence of a transmitter system.