The Israel Police launched a new emergency hotline on Sunday that will be dedicated to non-urgent emergencies.
While the current 100 hotline will still operate, the 110 line will be the address for all emergencies that do not require an immediate response. Police say that they hope the new call center will release the overload the aging 100 hotline has been suffering and will improve police response time to emergencies.
The Interior Security Ministry, which oversees the police, has embarked on a publicity blitz featuring television star Nadav Abeksis in order to update the public about the change.
"The campaign that we are starting today is part of a tremendous process that the Israel Police is improving and making the service available to the citizens in every area," said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.
"The upgraded 110 hotline will directly appeal to the public and invite them to contact regarding any information they might need, while on the other hand will reduce the overload at the 100 line, which will continue to shorten the response time for any emergency event."
Police Commissioner Roni Alshikeh had vowed to revamp the 100 emergency response line after several prominent failures left the police red-faced.
In 2014, Arab terrorists kidnapped and killed Israeli teenagers Naftali Frenkel, Eyal Yifrah and Gilad Sha'ar. Despite the fact that Shaer had called the 100 hotline immediately after realizing that he had been kidnapped, police had assumed the phone call was a prank and did not dispatch units to search for them, opening up the police to a flood of criticism.
In another high profile scandal, police had ignored a phone call from two girls who had spotted Arab Israeli terrorist Nashat Milhem getting on a bus in northern Tel Aviv just hours after he killed three Israelis in a Tel Aviv bar back in 2016.
The recording of the call showed that police might have tracked down Milhem quicker than the full week it took them had the snafu not occured.
