Estimates range from “hundreds” to “thousands” of residents from the Gush Dan area waiting for gas masks as the IDF Homefront Command is clearly ill prepared for the influx of residents. To the amazement of the nation, the Homefront Command has failed to anticipate the increase in requests for gas masks amid reports of an imminent military action involving Syria.

Phone lines collapsed earlier this morning and callers to the Homefront Command operators got nowhere. The same was the case with the Israel Postal Authority, which handles deliveries of the gas mask kits. The Postal Authority’s website has been unresponsive too.

In Beersheva, residents of the Negev’s capital are asking why the Homefront Command has not even set up a gas mask station in the city, compelling them to travel north to Ashkelon, where the lines are endless and chaotic as is reported in Tel Aviv.

Citizens waiting in line in the Tel Aviv area are losing it as there are countless crying children and babies and while personnel manning the station are doing their best, they are clearly outnumbered and not equipped to address the flow of residents. The Tel Aviv center is the only center serving the entire Gush Dan area.The same situation is reported in the Haifa center.

One can only assume that when the smoke of the Syrian conflict clears there will be a state or ministerial committee to probe the failure, and the blame will be assigned, but unfortunately, other than providing news feed for the media, little if anything every changes. The incompetence seems to prevail.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)