First, an update on the Egyptian threat:
The report in Ha'aretz Thursday morning said that Egypt has moved thousands of troops into Sinai, beefing up forces to battle the Islamist groups that have more or less taken over the peninsula.According to Thursday's report, Egypt did not ask Israel for permission to deploy the army troops in what is supposed to be a demilitarized zone.Speaking on Israel Radio, several commentators connected Wednesday night's attack on Eilat by Islamists to the Egyptian decision, with the Islamists said to be trying to goad Israel to raid Sinai, in the hope that they will end up facing off against Egyptian soldiers. An Islamist group called the "Salafi Sinai Front" claimed responsibility on Thursday for the Eilat attack.“If the government doesn't take all the direct or international steps it can to prevent this Egyptian violation of the Camp David Accords from continuing, we will soon find ourselves with troops and tanks facing our border,” said Ariel. “We will have yet another security threat to deal with on our southern border,” he added.
Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi is studying the possibility of keeping tanks in the Sinai Peninsula on a permanent basis, according to a senior Egyptian military official who spoke to WND.The military buildup would violate a key provision of peace accords signed with Israel in 1979 that calls for the total demilitarization of the peninsula.Morsi’s most recent unilateral sacking of the Egyptian military brass has now sent alarm bells ringing across Israel. The move signals the centralization of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood coalition and his presidency’s dominance over the military, which has long been seen as an independent force.Muslim Brotherhood leaders over the years have called for Egypt to abandon the peace treaty signed with Israel. The treaty was the basis for the opening of billions of dollars in U.S. aid that built the Egyptian military into one of the strongest forces in the Middle East today, perhaps second only to Israel.
An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program could trigger a bloody month-long war on multiple fronts, killing hundreds of Israelis or more, the Israeli Cabinet’s civil defence chief warned in an interview published Wednesday.In the Maariv interview, Vilnai said “the home front is ready as never before.” Nonetheless, he said the country must be braced for heavy casualties in the case of conflict with Iran.In his latest pronouncement, Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei said Israel will disappear from “the scene of geography.” Addressing war veterans in Tehran on Wednesday, he said Iran considers it its “religious duty to save this Islamic country (Palestine) from the clutches of the Zionist occupiers.”
Dozens of Israelis crowded in front of a storefront at a Jerusalem shopping mall Tuesday to pick up new gas masks, part of civil defense preparations in case the military strikes Iran and the Islamic Republic or its allies retaliate.“Our leaders seem to have gotten very hawkish in their speeches, and this time it seems they mean what they say,” said Yoram Lands, 68, a professor of business administration, who was picking up new masks for himself and his wife at a distribution center in the mall.“It seems that Netanyahu and Barak are making a special effort now to prepare the Israeli public for an attack on Iran,” said Shlomo Brom, a former commander of the army’s Strategic Planning Division, who said any strike could come within the next six months. While Israeli leaders repeatedly have said they could strike Iran’s facilities, the words are now being accompanied by civil-defense measures, including a new system that uses text messages to alert the public to missile attacks, wider distribution of gas masks and the appointment of a new Home Front Defense minister.The threats also come as nuclear talks between Iran and world powers have stalled and increased sanctions have so far failed to stop Iran’s atomic progress.Israelis “believe there’s a closing window of opportunity, and they also believe politically it’s far more complex if they wait until after November to strike,” said David Makovsky, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I think they’re concerned that if they attack during a lame-duck period they have a lot more uncertainty about American reaction.”
With ongoing public, military and diplomatic debates focusing on the possibility of a confrontation with Iran and growing fears that the lack of stability in Syria could lead to the use of unconventional weapons, the Home Front Command has been holding a series of drills throughout the country.
With the US sending clear public signals to Israel that it is opposed to military action now against Iran, and a cacophonous debate on the matter in Israel, senior Iranian officials continue to threaten Israel with destruction.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that he was confidant "the fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography,” Iran's Mehr News Agency reported.
Earlier on Wednesday Brig.- Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran's Passive (civil) Defense Organization and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, during a speech ahead of Al-Quds Day, an anti-Israel event initiated by Iran, said that in order to liberate Palestine there was no other option but to destroy Israel.
The White House has urgently contacted Jerusalem to arrange for US President Barack Obama to get together with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the next UN General Assembly session opening in New York on Sept. 18Netanyahu is preparing a tough speech inveighing against Iran’s nuclear aspirations, its calls to annihilate the state of Israel and widespread anti-Semitism. He plans to accuse Iranian leaders of assuming the role of contemporary Nazis and call for their expulsion from the world organization.Washington’s media offensive to tie Israel’s hands against attacking Iran before voting day on Nov. 6 climaxed with the news briefing given by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey at the Pentagon Tuesday, Aug. 14. They accentuated Israel’s weaknesses and argued that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would gain very little time.The next day, the White House went into action for a meeting with Netanyahu, aware that a strong Netanyahu speech at the UN General Assembly highlighting Iran’s progress toward building a nuclear bomb and its anti-Semitism would connect with mounting anti-Iran opinion in America and show Obama in a bad light as standing against military action against Iran by the United States and, more particularly, Israel.At the moment, they admitted, the US and Israel are no longer talking, because, “Both know that they have said all they have to say on the subject and remain divided."
Tel Aviv has prepared dozens of underground parking lots and garages throughout the city to serve as bomb shelters for hundreds of thousands of people in the event of missile attacks on the home front.
The city has designated 60 privately owned garages and underground lots, with a total space of 850,000 square meters, for use by up to 800,000 citizens.
All the facilities meet Home Front Command standards and were certified by a private engineering company, Maariv reported Wednesday.
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