“If I had to decide on to be in a protected room, a stairwell or a basement – I’d keep within the protected room. However after 33 years, it might be applicable to rethink the problem of safety,” says Israel Affiliation of Engineers appearing chairman Israel David, one of many nation’s most distinguished structural engineers.
Lately he’s ‘caught’ on trip in Provence, and it’s at present unclear when he can come residence because of the suspension of flights to Israel. Even so, he’s dedicating a big a part of his time to treating and aiding within the inspections of the buildings which have been broken throughout the conflict, via pictures and studies he receives from the websites of the injury.
David has lengthy been important of the Israeli idea of safety. “The difficulty of defending buildings in Israel has existed because the Struggle of Independence, and every time safety is dealt with in response to what has occurred, and never what may occur,” he says.
“In the course of the Struggle 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 because of this, they constructed plenty of shelters – each in buildings and public shelters. The considering was that in an extended conflict, it might be attainable to carry beds down there and spend time within the shelters.
“Then got here the Gulf Struggle (1991), which required getting all the way 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 not possible to get all the way down to the shelter in an 8-12-floor constructing in 60 seconds, particularly in a scenario the place there are folks with disabilities. That is after they invented the safe room in 1992.”
What rules guided the builders of the protected room, and what’s not related immediately?
“The situation 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 utterly totally different threats.”
Why? The Iraqi Scuds have been missiles, and the Iranian missiles are missiles. What’s totally different?
“They’re utterly totally 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 utterly totally 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’d like to consider modifications in threat administration and likewise from a technological perspective.”
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What do you imply by modifications in threat administration?
“The fundamental assumption of the protected room, created because of threat administration and likelihood calculations following the Iran-Iraq conflict, was that there could 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 primary assumption?”
Senior officers within the Dwelling 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 stand up to a direct hit. Personally, I’d have stayed in a protected room, as a result of the overall 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 be sure that we’re doing the perfect we will immediately, or possibly we will do one thing totally different. One factor is definite and vital to internalize: we’ll by no means have the ability to do something absolute.”
“Surrounding injury inside a radius of a whole bunch of meters”
Let’s return to the buildings that have been hit by missiles. You have reviewed images and studies 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 outdated and constructed to poor requirements, so the outcomes of the missile strikes have been totally different.”
“The Tel Aviv tower is a fortunate constructing. It’s a particular constructing. It has many protected rooms per ground as a result of it has many flats per ground. 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, regardless that it was hit by a missile that I feel is without doubt one of the heaviest there may be, into the center ground 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 laws; the second – stairwell safety that creates nice reinforcement for the buildings, which, along with 4 or 6 protected rooms per ground, creates rigidity for the construction. In different phrases, the elements that make a constructing sturdy are usually 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 a whole bunch of meters. We additionally deal with buildings that weren’t instantly hit and are virtually a kilometer away from the influence. Though they weren’t broken structurally, the curtain partitions and inside finishes have been broken.”
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on June 22, 2025.
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