The Israel Defense Forces and Defense Ministry’s National Emergency Management Authority launched a first of its kind, week-long exercise on Sunday, simulating a full-scale war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group amid a period of domestic turmoil. The exercise will test Israel’s response to massive barrages of rockets, precision missiles, and multiple chemical attacks.
The drill is meant to see how well Israeli emergency response organizations — namely the military, police, fire department, and Magen David Adom — learned lessons from this past May’s 11-day conflict with Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip, which was compounded by large sectarian riots in mixed Arab-Jewish cities throughout the country.
MDA Director-General Eli Bin says, “Magen David Adom, which is one of the four components of the Home Front Command, takes part in a national exercise every year as part of maintaining the organization’s competence in operational readiness and routine transition to emergency.”
During the week, Magen David Adom teams will participate in three different exercises simulating responses to missile attacks. They will practice evacuation of a community under fire; treatment and evacuation of a multi-casualty incident of another community; and transferring wounded people from what may be an over-crowded hospital in the North to a hospital in Jerusalem.
The transfer will be carried out with MDA ambulances and the MDA Special Intensive Care Bus, which allows the evacuation of up to 13 wounded at once, including two patients who require advanced medical treatment at the level of intensive care. The MDA bus was used when a large number of corona patients had to be transferred between nursing homes and during the massive fire in the Galilee last year.
“MDA employees and volunteers, who work around the clock to save lives in Israel, understand the enormity of the responsibility placed on their shoulders. They will work diligently during this exercise so the citizens of Israel know that in an emergency they have someone to trust,” says Eli Bin.
