A new program created by the IDF Operations Directorate and the Homefront Command is examining the possibility to assign soldiers who do not play a crucial role in emergency-related tasks to actually help citizens, such as substituting teachers who are called into reserve duty in schools and helping the elderly.

“This project is utilizing to the fullest the IDF’s personnel in an emergency,” the Operations Directorate explains. “We want to assist the home front with the treatment of civilians, and one way to do so is through these soldiers who aren’t needed in their units during emergencies, and can help in other missions.”

According to the program being formulated these days in the Self Defense Branch of the Operations Directorate, some of the secretaries at the Rabin military base, for instance, will replace their telephones and offices with classrooms and blackboards, and will be used to substitute teachers in schools that need assistance.

Moreover, the IDF is now exploring additional tasks that soldiers, whose job is not defined as essential during time of war, will be able to fill. Among other things, they will be helping the elderly and give assistance in institutions such as in hospitals.

One scenario which was examined as part of the “Turning Point 4” emergency response exercise held recently was the collaboration between the Homefront Command and military authorities, in handling exceptional events which actually take place on IDF bases. Among other things, on Israeli Air Force bases, the Rabin base and other strategic bases, they practiced the necessary order of operations in the case of missile attacks in the center of the army bases. “The scale of the exercise on the IDF bases was unprecedented in relation to previous years,” comments the Operations Directorate.

(IDF Spokesman – Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)