Israeli cabinet minister threatens to destroy Iran

Bombay News.Net
Monday 7th April, 2008

Iran will be destroyed if it attacks Israel, Infrastructure Minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said Monday.

The former defense minister was speaking as Israel was being prepared for war with a major public drill. "Any attack on Israel would lead to "the destruction of Iran," he said.

"The Iranians won't rush to attack Israel, because they understand the significance such action would have and are well aware of our strength," he said. "However, Iran continues to aggravate the situation by supplying arms to Syria and Hezbollah, and we must deal with this."

Ben-Eliezer was speaking at the new Government War Room Headquarters, which was opened on Sunday. Different bodies of the country's homefront, including local authorities, Homefront Command, governmental offices, and search and rescue teams are taking part in the emergency drill, which began Sunday and will last five days.

The focal point of the drill will occur Tuesday morning, when a one-and-a-half minute long alarm will be heard throughout Israel, with the exception of Sderot and Israeli towns in proximity to the Gaza Strip. The alarm will signal the start of a wide scale emergency drill in all educational institutions. Students will be directed to the closest shelters, and an hour will be devoted to the instruction of proper emergency situation procedures. A commander of the Homefront Command will assess the handling of the emergency situation by the local authorities.

Israel's National Emergency Authority, which was established last September after conclusive findings of the Second Lebanon War, will be in charge of directing the drill and controlling homefront security forces. This is the first drill headed by the Authority, and will help define it's boundaries of responsibilities and the interface between the different elements and commanders responsible for the homefront security.

The Homefront Command will also broadcast a program Tuesday on channel 33, in which the spokesperson of the GOC of the Homefront Command will address the public. Following this, the Homefront Command will broadcast a self-defense program on channel 33 to educate the public on proper emergency situation procedures. "Pre-planning is a necessity to learn how to confront an emergency situation," explained the head of the Population Department, Colonel Hilik Sofer. "Therefore, every civilian and family must choose a nearby shelter in case of an emergency and have the family emergency kit prepared."

Ben-Eliezer said the national emergency drill, "is not a meaningless spectacle or a fictional scenario. The future reality is likely to be a number of times harsher than that which we recognize now. We are confronted with a situation where the home front becomes the front line."

"In a future war, it will be much safer to live in [the northern towns of] Nahariya and Shlomi instead of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, since I expect that in the opening attack hundreds of missiles will strike Israel. There will be no place in the country which is not within range of Syria and Hezbollah's rocketsm," he said.

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