The State Comptroller has published a series of reports revealing significant systemic flaws in the government's preparedness and handling of the evacuated population and the readiness of local authorities and municipalities.
The report outlines a reality of a lack of coordinated leadership, failures in information management, and the disruption of essential services for the evacuated citizens.
According to the report, the emergency bodies did not prepare a plan for evacuating the population of Kiryat Shmona outside the settlement's borders before the war. The Kiryat Shmona municipality itself was unprepared for the scenario of fully evacuating its 24,000 residents.
In the South, while the Eshkol Regional Council was found to be well-prepared, the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot had outdated information on residents, making it difficult to manage communication with them in real-time.
The report on information management states that the Ministry of the Interior refrained from activating the "Noah's Ark" system, which was established for receiving evacuees. As a result, the Home Front Command operated an improvised system. Delays in transferring information between the National Insurance Institute, government ministries, and local authorities created difficulties in locating evacuees in the community and providing services for them.
Out of approximately 48,000 evacuated students, as of January 2024, there were no reports in the systems for about 16% of them. The report concludes that the Ministry of Education did not prepare a plan in advance for the rapid absorption of evacuated teaching staff in host schools. Many students evacuated to hotels suffered from instability and a lack of full educational and emotional support.
In the welfare sector, the audit found that the Ministry of Welfare had not prepared a dedicated plan to care for evacuated teenagers staying in hotels. Many receiving authorities struggled to locate at-risk populations due to a lack of data, forcing them to rely on local initiatives and volunteers to map the evacuees' needs.
The Ministry of the Interior's avoidance of activating the PSH (Evacuation, Assistance, Sheltering) system led to local authorities and volunteers being responsible for providing basic needs such as food, laundry, and hygiene supplies in the first weeks. The Comptroller commended the receiving authorities (such as Eilat, Tiberias, and Jerusalem) for filling the governmental vacuum.
The costs and loss of income for the evacuated and receiving authorities that were examined totaled approximately 316 million shekels by the end of 2023. The presence of the IDF in the settlements caused severe damage to infrastructure and agriculture. Additionally, municipal corporations in conflict settlements incurred estimated losses of around 123 million shekels due to halting operations.
The Comptroller concludes that due to a lack of decision-making in the government, there is no single body in Israel with the authority and responsibility for managing the civilian home front. The multiplicity of involved parties and disputes between government ministries contributed to a deterioration in the quality of services for the evacuees and systemic inefficiency.