“If I had to decide on to be in a protected room, a stairwell or a basement – I might keep within the protected room. However after 33 years, it could be applicable to rethink the problem of safety,” says Israel Affiliation of Engineers appearing chairman Israel David, one of many nation’s most outstanding structural engineers.
Lately he’s ‘caught’ on trip in Provence, and it’s presently unclear when he can come house because of the suspension of flights to Israel. Even so, he’s dedicating a big a part of his time to treating and helping within the inspections of the buildings which were broken throughout the warfare, by photographs and experiences he receives from the websites of the injury.
David has lengthy been essential of the Israeli idea of safety. “The difficulty of defending buildings in Israel has existed for the reason that Warfare of Independence, and every time safety is dealt with in response to what has occurred, and never what may occur,” he says.
“Through the Warfare of Independence (1948), Egyptian planes bombed Tel Aviv from the sky, and from the east the Jordanians shelled with artillery from the Kalkilya space and reached virtually so far as Tel Aviv. The lesson discovered then was {that a} defensive system wanted to be established that may serve the residents for a very long time, and consequently, they constructed quite a lot of shelters – each in buildings and public shelters. The pondering was that in an extended warfare, it could be attainable to carry beds down there and spend time within the shelters.
“Then got here the Gulf Warfare (1991), which required getting right down to the shelter inside 60-80 seconds due to the missiles from Iraq. Then they realized that the shelter was not appropriate, not due to safety issues, however due to accessibility. It’s unimaginable to get right down to the shelter in an 8-12-floor constructing in 60 seconds, particularly in a scenario the place there are individuals with disabilities. That is once they invented the safe room in 1992.”
What ideas guided the builders of the protected room, and what’s not related at this time?
“The state of affairs was that the protected room wouldn’t have to face up to a direct hit, however solely a missile strike, which might hit 15 meters away from the protected room, however since then there have been fully completely different threats.”
Why? The Iraqi Scuds had been missiles, and the Iranian missiles are missiles. What’s completely different?
“They’re fully completely different. The accuracy of the Scuds was extraordinarily low. They fired 35 missiles and hit one constructing; look what occurred during the last week. There’s a fully completely different scenario right here.
“As well as, the Iranians have hundreds of missiles, with payloads that may attain two tons, which didn’t exist in any respect within the missiles of 1991. We want to consider adjustments in danger administration and in addition from a technological perspective.”
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What do you imply by adjustments in danger administration?
“The fundamental assumption of the protected room, created because of danger administration and chance calculations following the Iran-Iraq warfare, was that there can be no direct hits on the rooms. However this week we noticed two or three instances through which protected rooms did take a direct hit. So ought to we persist with that fundamental assumption?”
Senior officers within the Residence Entrance Command stated final week that to guard towards a direct hit, you want 3-meter-thick concrete. “They’re admitting for the primary time that protected rooms can not face up to a direct hit. Personally, I might have stayed in a protected room, as a result of the full variety of direct hits from all of the missiles launched at Israel have been few.
“However I nonetheless argue that after 33 years it’s value rethinking. At the very least do a brainstorming session to ensure that we’re doing the very best we are able to at this time, or possibly we are able to do one thing completely different. One factor is for certain and necessary to internalize: we are going to by no means be capable of do something absolute.”
“Surrounding injury inside a radius of lots of of meters”
Let’s return to the buildings that had been hit by missiles. You have reviewed pictures and experiences of the injury. What are your insights?
“If a missile just like the one which hit the constructing in Petah Tikva, and the one which hit the tower in Tel Aviv, had hit buildings overseas, they might have collapsed. Alternatively, the constructing in Bat Yam and different buildings are previous and constructed to poor requirements, so the outcomes of the missile strikes had been completely different.”
“The Tel Aviv tower is a fortunate constructing. It’s a particular constructing. It has many protected rooms per flooring as a result of it has many flats per flooring. The architect designed it with a dense community of columns and horizontal beams, and never glass curtain partitions, with columns 8-9 meters aside.
“And so, despite the fact that it was hit by a missile that I feel is among the heaviest there may be, into the center flooring of the constructing – the constructing survived. The injury there may be insane, and the missile hit a column that holds up 42 flooring and minimize it like a rope with scissors and but the constructing survived.
“The Petah Tikva constructing additionally survived the missile that hit a nook with two protected rooms, and it’s not an unique constructing, which was constructed about 9 years in the past.
“The survival of the brand new buildings is a number of causes: the primary – resistance to earthquake rules; the second – stairwell safety that creates nice reinforcement for the buildings, which, along with 4 or 6 protected rooms per flooring, creates rigidity for the construction. In different phrases, the elements that make a constructing sturdy usually are not solely the protected rooms, however a set of engineering standards.”
“As well as, we see surrounding injury from the missiles, which reaches distances of lots of of meters. We additionally deal with buildings that weren’t immediately hit and are virtually a kilometer away from the affect. Though they weren’t broken structurally, the curtain partitions and inside finishes had been broken.”
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on June 22, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
