State Comptroller: State failing to protect communities around Gaza Strip

State Comptroller Micah Lindenstrauss on Sunday leveled harsh criticism at the failure of the defense establishment to provide communities surrounding Gaza with proper protection against rocket attacks since the Israeli pullout from the Strip last September.

The State Comptroller on Sunday issued its first report on the state's preparedness for implementing the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

The report slammed the slowness and inefficiency with which the state has acted to reinforce homes in the western Negev region to defend them against Palestinian rocket strikes.

Lindenstrauss said actions taken to defend the lives of Israelis living adjacent to the Gaza Strip have been "unreasonable and inefficient and have been drawn out over an extensive period of time due to negotiations that never resulted in implementation on the ground. This situation continued through November 2005, the end of the period covered by the report."

In the period since last November, there has been no significant positive change in the quality of home protection.

The comptroller found fundamental deficiencies in the decision-making and implementation processes concerning the defense of western Negev communities.

According to Lindenstrauss, the approval and budgeting stages of the process took an unreasonable amount of time - from June 2004 until July 2005. A delay in the approval of the project's budget was the primary cause the retrofitting of homes was not carried out according to schedule.

Even though 17 months have passed since the government decided to withdraw from Gaza and another three-and-a-half months have passed since the pullout was completed, the homes in the communities most threatened by rocket fire have still not been properly reinforced.

Further, wrote the state comptroller, some of the reinforcement work has not even begun and there is still no budgetary agreement between the finance and defense ministries allowing the implementation of the plan.

Even though the reinforcement of homes in the three communities closest to the Gaza border fence - Netiv Ha'asarah, Nahal Oz and Kerem Shalom - was slated for completion by August 2005, the work was still not finished as of November 2005. It remains incomplete to this day.

The communities remain exposed to light arms fire, anti-tank missiles and steep-trajectory projectiles such as mortar shells and Qassam rockets.

The defense establishment has not finished reinforcing the roofs of kindergartens or schools, nor has it paved security patrol roads, built defensive walls, installed emergency lighting systems or erected security fences in these communities.

In his report, Lindenstrauss called this a serious failure.

	A police sapper removing a Qassam rocket that hit Sderot. (Archive)