Israel’s emergency management challenges

The stabbing and car-ramming terrorist attacks that started in the fall of 2015 were not one of the main scenarios for which Israel’s complex emergency management system had prepared or drilled. Since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the institutions charged with preparing for emergencies have focused most of their efforts on different scenarios involving missiles and rockets. Indeed, Israel has made significant progress in preparedness for such attacks, but the stabbings and car-rammings highlight the complexity and multidimensionality of emergency preparedness. This interdisciplinary and inter-organizational mission requires ongoing cooperation among all parties involved; comprehensive planning with built-in flexibility; intensive drilling of various scenarios; and conceptual and operational preparedness for unexpected, unfamiliar, and changing situations. Meeting this challenge is difficult, but it is possible and critically important in the current situation.