Central Israeli base lacks any ballistic protection, Army Radio warns

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Israeli media
15 Aug 2024 14:54
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Iran and Hezbollah's possible strike on central Israeli bases see soldiers and commander complain to the Israeli Army Radio about the lack of protection offered.

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Israeli occupation forces take cover during an air raid siren warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, in the Gaza Envelope, in occupied Palestine, on May 10, 2023. (AP)

A large Israeli occupation forces base in central Israeli-occupied territories "is not protected at all" from rocket and missile attacks, the Israeli Army Radio reported on Thursday.

The base has been recently set up and appropriated for Israeli occupation forces to accommodate its operational needs during the war on Gaza and the ongoing confrontations on the Northern Front, according to the channel.

Releasing the information amid the possibilities of retaliatory attacks from Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran, and Yemen, the Israeli Army Radio warned of the consequences of the current situation in the large base.

The base hosts hundreds of soldiers, commanders, and officers and is yet to receive the installment of infrastructure for protection from incoming aerial attacks or bombardment.

"The base has no shields and no protected areas," the channel explained.

Israeli military bases are usually equipped with easy-to-access bomb shelters or mobile reinforced pods, which troops rush to if aerial attacks are detected.

However, in this case, the protocol is less effective, as the troops will be forced to lie down during the attack or enter buildings to mitigate the effects of missile or rocket attacks.

The Israeli military command did not take the necessary measures to protect the troops, even though the base had been operational for several months.

Commanders in the base had requested mobile ballistic shields be brought to the base in April 2024, when Iran was set to respond to an Israeli attack on its embassy in Syria. The requests were ignored at the time and they remain unfulfilled to this day.

The Israeli Army Radio also revealed that the occupation's military receives 60-70 such shields per week, which have been placed all over Israeli military sites in northern and southern occupied territories. However, no ballistic shields have been delivered to this particular base.

Soldiers stationed in other nearby bases also complained of similar cases of lack of protection.

The effectiveness of ballistic shields could be rendered futile depending on the type and caliber of munitions deployed by the Axis of Resistance. Guided munitions, such as anti-tank guided missiles and drones, could circumvent such measures by picking out their targets. Ballistic missiles holding warheads weighing hundreds of kilograms and traveling at supersonic speeds at the time of impact are also surely to render such preliminary measures futile.

Precision strike capabilities proven

Nevertheless, the fact that such infrastructure has not been installed in these bases to this point is shocking, as the Israeli military command has been made familiar with the precision weapons employed by the Axis in multiple incidents over the past 10 months.

Hezbollah, Iran, and Yemen all have promised retaliation over Israeli aggression in July, all armed with their own reasons to do so. Hezbollah has vowed stern retaliation for the assassination of commander martyr Fouad Shokor in the airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed the commander and a military advisor and killed and injured several civilians in the process.

Iran has promised to avenge Hamas leader martyr Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in northern Tehran, and defend its sovereignty, in a strike that Western diplomats and intelligence could collect little information about in the past two weeks.

The leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi, also vowed a response to the killing of martyr Haniyeh and an Israeli attack on the Hodeiddah port and other facilities earlier.

All of the aforementioned parties have proven their precision strike capabilities and Israeli assets and targets, putting the occupation military and settler communities in heightened readiness and under exceptional operational measures.