Drill finds faults at Knesset

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
The Knesset was not exempt from the massive Home Front preparedness drills held Tuesday, nor was it exempt from the technical errors that were discovered across the country in the course of the exercise. The air-raid sirens sounded in the Knesset - as they did throughout the country - promptly at 10 a.m., but many of the lawmakers in the building during the Pessah recess failed to respond. MKs complained that in many of the committee rooms, it was impossible to hear the piercing 90-second sirens. But Knesset Dir.-Gen. Avi Balashnikov was not alarmed, explaining that the purpose of such an exercise was to identify weak points in preparedness. Knesset members, on the other hand, put a lighter twist on events, with members of the Labor and Welfare, and Foreign Workers' Committees, which met immediately after the drill, joking about the results. "120 people were killed, but no losses were reported," quipped Labor and Welfare Committee Chairman Yitzhak Galanti, referring to the 120 members of Knesset.