Community leaders representing Gaza border communities, those hit hardest by Gaza rocket fire, are being cut off the IDF Homefront Command’s pager alert system. To date, the community first response units were tied into the Homefront Command’s pager alert system, providing them with real time updates in times of peril.

While the military speaks of limited efficiency of the system, community leaders express a “feeling of total abandonment”.

One community leader told Walla News “The decision is extremely unreasonable and it appears in just a few short months officials have forgotten the importance of operational preparedness and the disaster that might result in case of a lack of readiness on our part.”

YWN-ISRAEL adds that each community will be left with one unit, to be assigned to the yishuv security officer, but community leaders insist this is insufficient.

In response, the IDF Spokesman’s Office released the following statement: All those involved in community security, including auxiliary, security officers and heads of military security operations, will continue to hold devices and pagers to receive relevant messages. For reasons of increasing efficiency, pagers given to people uninvolved in these areas are being returned.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)