IDF, police did not coordinate on Carmel fire

Special emergency agency created after 2nd Lebanon War did not hold regular joint meetings between relevant arms of gov't.

By YAAKOV KATZ
311_Micha Lindenstrauss (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
311_Micha Lindenstrauss
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Defense Ministry’s National Emergency Administration failed to prepare together with the IDF the defense establishment’s response to national disasters such as the Mount Carmel fire, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss wrote in his damning report released on Wednesday.
In the report, Lindenstrauss said that the NEA needed to prepare ahead of time a list of potential national disasters and to work together with the IDF to create various responses and solutions. The NEA was established after the 2006 Second Lebanon War to coordinate between the various emergency services in the event of large-scale missile attacks or national disasters.
Lindenstrauss said that the 2010 fire demonstrated the lack of coordination between the military and the Israel Police in home front crisis management.
“The IDF and the police did not hold regular joint assessments of the situation during the fire,” Lindenstrauss wrote in the report.
“This was needed in order to properly manage the emergency efforts and in order to see if the police was capable of managing the event or needed to transfer responsibility to the IDF.”
The report said that it was imperative that all of the emergency services create a communications system that would enable them to talk to another during emergencies.
Lindenstrauss repeated a recommendation he made after the Second Lebanon War that the government establish a single body that is responsible for all emergency efforts on the home front, unlike the situation today under which the IDF is responsible for its Home Front Command and the Public Security Ministry is responsible for the Israel Police.