Israeli disaster drills test children

Week of exercises designed to ready country for attack

Israeli children took cover in a school north of Jerusalem yesterday during a civil defense exercise. Memories of the confrontation with Hezbollah in 2006 hang over the week's events. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

JERUSALEM - An estimated 1.7 million Israeli schoolchildren headed for shelters yesterday morning in response to a nationwide emergency siren as part of disaster drills that authorities said were an attempt to learn the lessons of Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah.

At 10 a.m., a rising and falling siren sounded throughout the country, signaling the start of the most public aspect of the weeklong drills. News footage showed children filing out of classrooms under the direction of their teachers, and "injured" students being treated by paramedics and carried on stretchers.

On Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and members of his security Cabinet ran through a scenario of Israel coming under multiple missile attacks. Police and rescue workers in the coastal city of Haifa today will practice responding to a simulated chemical plant explosion prompted by a missile attack. Officials will unveil and test a $500,000 underground shelter and disaster response headquarters built underneath the city's central bus station.

The memories of Israel's confrontation with Hezbollah in 2006, when the Lebanese militant group's rockets showered down on northern Israeli cities and towns for weeks, hang over this week's events. Also weighing on Israelis are the current attacks on the town of Sderot, frequently hit by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

"All these things heightened the awareness of the general population, and I think this is important and will help us to be better prepared," said Colonel Zvika Tessler, Home Front Command director for Tel Aviv, in an interview with Israeli radio. "I see it in the schools - I see how the students and the teachers react, the principals, the local authorities. Everyone is taking it very seriously, and I think that this in itself is already a big achievement."

Sderot, where rocket sirens remain a fact of daily life, was the one town exempted from drills.

This week's massive domestic mobilization has placed Israel's neighbors to the north on edge. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora of Lebanon put his military on heightened alert, and the UN troops enforcing the cease-fire in South Lebanon reportedly increased their number of patrols.

Olmert denied any ulterior or aggressive motive. "I want to emphasize that this is only a drill, with nothing hiding behind it," Olmert told his cabinet Sunday. "We have no secret plans. This drill is not part of anything else."