Col. Adam Zusman, Home Front Commander of Israel’s Dan region (Tel Aviv and its environs), told AFP Tuesday, June 12, "In case of a missile attack on the centre of Israel, especially unconventional attacks and if buildings are destroyed, the population from Tel Aviv and other cities will be evacuated and relocated in other areas of the country."
The officer did not say to where the roughly two million inhabitants of the Dan region’s core towns of Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, Holon, Petakh Tikva, Ramat Hasharon, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Bein Brak, Herzliya, Or Yehuda, Givat Shmuel and Kiryat Ono, would be evacuated. debkafile’s military sources estimate they will be relocated in the southern mostly desert Negev region. The outer Gush Dan ring includes some 3 million people.
Col. Zusman said Israel continued to face serious threats from Iran and its allies, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and Gaza's Hamas rulers. He did not refer to Syria.
"In the next war, nobody will be able to drink a coffee in Dizengoff," he said, referring to a popular street in downtown Tel Aviv. "Israeli civilians will have to face the threat. Today, every civilian is threatened in Israel."
Thirty percent of the Israeli population under his command are short of gas masks.
Zusman added Israel has some of the "most sophisticated" anti-aircraft system in the world, but that the Jewish state could not count on any system for total protection. "We are getting ready for the worst-case scenario."
Until now, Israeli officials and high-ranking officers have never talked openly about the potential outcome of a concentrated missile attack on central Israel, although two days ago, the deputy chief of staff, Maj. General Yair Naveh disclosed that Syria had the biggest arsenal in the world of chemical weapons and also rockets able to strike every part of Israel.
debkafile’s military sources report that plans were drawn up to evacuate Tel Aviv and some of its outlying towns two years ago when it turned out that in a potential war, that centralregion might be attacked with missiles carrying “dirty” (radioactive) warheads which spreads contamination across an area of several square kilometers, or containing poison chemicals, nerve gas or biological substances.
While Iran is the only possible source of nuclear bombs, although none are yet operational, the other types of unconventional weapons are possessed by Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
Israel’s Defense Forces area also prepared for a nuclear or dirty bomb attack coming from the Mediterranean Sea to the West.
Col. Zusman did not go into the logistics of a massive population transfer from Tel Aviv or the measures to sustain them as refugees. However, because of the awareness of Tel Aviv’s potential danger, building was halted there on a new underground facility for the IDF General Command, which unlike the present war room was planned to withstand intense missile attack. Our military sources report that an alternative site has been reserved to house the high command in the event of war.
