New recruits and their commanding officers at the IDF’s Zikim training base will soon be able to experience life as it is for civilians in Sderot and other western Negev communities.
IDF officials announced Monday morning that the Color Red rocket alert system used in Gaza belt communities will be installed in the Zikim army base in the next several days.
In addition, the army plans to install portable concrete shelters throughout the training base.
The Color Red system, which sounds off by repeatedly announcing the words "Color – Red" when an incoming rocket is detected, provides a 15-second warning in which to seek shelter before the expected impact. Residents of the western Negev communities have complained for years that the system does not provide enough lead time in which to reach safety.
Furthermore, Sderot officials are more than eager to point out the poor condition of many of the shelters that do exist, as well as the many areas in which there are no viable shelters at all.
Parents of soldiers began clamoring for the IDF to protect their children while they are at the Zikim base in the wake of a Kassam rocket attack this past Tuesday in which 69 soldiers were wounded, four seriously.
The demands were similar to those that have been voiced repeatedly by parents in Sderot whose children are repeatedly traumatized by the whistle of flying rockets and the explosions that follow, never knowing where, when or who the missiles might strike next.
IDF officials said soldiers at the Zikim base will continue to sleep in tents, despite demands by parents that the army provide them with fortified buildings instead.
The parents were told that the soldiers are well protected at the base, in comparison to residents of nearby towns who have endured thousands of rocket attacks in the past seven years.