07/12/2010 The Israeli occupation Home Front Command began the inquiry phase of its participation in the battle to extinguish the Carmel Forest fire since Thursday amid concern within the Israeli defense establishment regarding what will happen if a fire of a similar scale breaks out during a war, according to the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post.
“Imagine that in a future war, as missiles are landing in our cities we will face a forest fire like the scale of the Carmel forest fire,” one defense official said on Monday.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, during a “future war” with Hezbollah, the group will be able to fire several hundred missiles and rockets daily into occupied Palestine, some of them with the capability of hitting main population centers like Tel Aviv.
If that happens, said JPost, the fear is that almost all of Israel’s emergency services will be preoccupied with rescue and relief efforts inside the cities and little resources will be left for combating forest fires.
During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, while rockets landed frequently in cities in the occupied North, particularly in Haifa, they also landed in fields and forests, burning down some 15,000 dunams (1,500 hectares). At the time, planes were sent to Europe to bring back fire-retardant materials to extinguish the raging forest fires, the daily said.
“This could turn into a major weak spot for the country,” the official said. “We have limited resources and will not be able to be everywhere at once.”
In the meantime, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i is also probing the performance of the Defense Ministry’s National Emergency Administration and the coordination among the various emergency services that participated in battling the blaze in the North.
The results will be presented to Defense Minister Ehud Barak by the end of the week.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear on Monday that he will oppose setting up a state commission of inquiry to look into poor preparedness for the forest fire that consumed much of the Carmel forest, killing 42 people.
Netanyahu told reporters he believes a report by the state comptroller on the state of the fire service, due to be released on Wednesday, and findings by other committees that had looked into the matter over the years, would suffice. "We don't need more conclusions, we need implementation," the prime minister said.
Netanyahu had been pressuring Interior Minister Eli Yishai to rescind his support for an inquiry, but four other ministers have since endorsed the idea. Minister for Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman sent a letter to Netanyahu in which he said the Carmel fire was to decision-making on civilian issues in Israel what the Second Lebanon War was for military issues. "If we don't see what had happened as an earth-shattering event necessitating fearless and unobstructed investigation, the proper lessons will not be learned," the minister wrote.
Braverman also warned that unless Netanyahu acquiesced to the request, he would personally propose the inquiry to the cabinet.
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