They heard the siren in the south -- at least in the areas that participated in the drill. The Gaza Belt was exempt from the exercise.
Avi Mouallem heard the air raid siren as he was driving to the mall in Arad. “I knew it was a drill, so it didn’t really concern me,” the former IDF paratrooper told Arutz-7. “Still, I parked and made it my business to move a little quicker to get inside.”
Although Mouallem has spent most of his life in Arad and travels around the south as a contractor, it never occurred to him to wonder whether the mall has its own bomb shelter – or might itself be considered such a structure.
Had he ever been concerned about where to find the nearest public shelter? “Nope. Try calling the municipal office or police department,” he suggested with a shrug, clearly a member of the Israeli "Yihiyeh beseder" (It will be okay.) adherents.
Holes in the System
Israelis in some parts of Tel Aviv and Hadera, on the other hand, might not be as lucky in an actual emergency, if Tuesday is any indication.
IDF Army Radio interviewed several residents from around the country who said they did not hear the emergency sirens activate, among them a number in the central region.
A man from Hadera, who said he heard the siren just fine during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, said that he and his family “waited and waited for the drill to begin – to no avail.“
Residents of Tel Aviv, sipping their morning joe in local coffee shops and sidewalk cafes were also interviewed and said they, too did not hear the 90-second siren that is supposed to alert the populace to the presence of an incoming missile attack.
Gaza Belt Communities Exempt
The rocket-battered city of Sderot and other Gaza Belt communities were exempt from the drill. For them, the exercise was unnecessary since the immediacy of the day to day situation is tragically all too real.
It was also believed the exercise would prove unnecessarily upsetting, given the current security situation.
Buzzers Distributed Hearing-Impaired Israelis
Last month the Home Front Command distributed more than 150 buzzers in Ashkelon to people who are deaf and otherwise hearing-impaired, thus allowing them to receive warning of imminent terror rocket attacks.
The buzzer operates only in areas that are under rocket threats, said Home Front Command official Lt.-Col. Uri Peretz. Similar buzzers have been distributed to Sderot residents in the past.
Expanded Color Red System in Netivot, Ashkelon
A Color Red rocket alert system was activated in the western Negev city of Netivot and in the port city of Ashkelon earlier this year, after Palestinian Authority terrorists in Gaza graduated to using mid-range Grad missiles in their attacks on southern Israeli cities.
The system installed in Ashkelon, a city of more than 110,000 residents, was also not heard throughout the entire city on its initial activation. Moreover, the 15-second warning it provided was not enough time for residents to reach safety.
IDF engineers were forced to tinker with the system several times before the system was able to produce a 30-second window within which residents had time to race for cover.