Outraged residents of northern Israel demand IDF broaden air defense after unintercepted rocket kills couple

IDF defines most roads as ‘open areas,’ where rockets aren’t intercepted

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An IDF investigation following a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed Nir and Noa Baranes while they were driving in a car on Israel’s Golan Heights has caused outrage among local residents, highlighting the complexities of Israel’s highly regarded aerial defense system.

According to the military, the road the couple was driving on was classified as an “open area,” meaning it was not considered important enough to be defended by the Iron Dome’s precise but costly missile shield.

This is true not only in the north but throughout the entire country. The Iron Dome and other defense systems only cover areas defined as populated, such as settlements, infrastructure, ports, power plants, and army bases. Consequently, most roads and highways are not protected, and the air defense systems do not attempt to shoot down rockets that, according to their calculations, will land in these areas.

However, a senior military official told Army Radio that highways are not automatically defined as “open areas,” posing the question of why one of the major roads in the Golan Heights wasn’t being protected.

The rocket impact that killed the Baranes on Tuesday occurred on Highway 91, connecting several IDF bases and leading to towns that haven’t been evacuated due to their relatively large distance from the Lebanese border.

The rocket struck close to the IDF’s Nafah base, the headquarters of the 210th Division, but because the couple's car was still several hundred meters away from the base, it wasn’t protected.

The army said it wasn't clear if the couple heard the siren alerts from the nearby IDF base while driving in their car.

In addition, in many areas of northern Israel, the IDF has been jamming the GPS signal to prevent attacks by GPS-guided missiles, making it impossible to depend on GPS for the “red alert” app, a phone application the army uses to alert Israelis of potential rocket fire.

The investigation showed that the alerts were activated on time and in the proper locations, but that for the aforementioned reasons, the Baranes couple didn't receive the warnings.

To address this issue, the IDF previously advised Israelis to pre-define areas of interest in the alert system to receive automatic warnings. However, "open areas" cannot be designated as areas of interest within the app.

IDF Home Front Command generally advises drivers to stop and exit their vehicles during a rocket alert, and then to lie on the ground a safe distance away from the car, if possible.

“The bottom line: The Baranes couple had no way of knowing that they were in an area within the range of dozens of rockets, since the IDF currently has no means of providing them with a warning - and the IDF did not provide them with protection either, since it determined the area they were traveling in as an open area that isn’t protected by the air defense systems,” wrote Doron Kadosh, Army Radio’s military correspondent.

In the next two weeks, the army will decide how to prevent similar occurrences and develop solutions in the application to allow people to receive a warning while they are in open areas or on the road, according to Army Radio.

Following the publication of the IDF probe, Golan Regional Council head Uri Kellner met with Northern Command OC Maj.-Gen. Uri Gordin. He presented him with two demands: First, to define the areas surrounding the IDF bases in the Golan as protected areas; and second to define the main roads in the Golan as protected areas, not as open areas.

“The IDF’s policy of containment and risk management, in which they define places where civilians are located as open areas, is a waste of human life,” stated Lobby 1701, an organization representing residents of northern Israel.

“It's time to switch from defense to offense, because it just doesn't work. We call on the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister to take responsibility for the army and the lives of civilians, to act to change the interception policy, and to go from defense to the attack.”

The forum “Fighting for the North,” which represents hundreds of families of evacuees, dubbed the IDF policy “neglect of human lives.”

“Again and again we painfully see the harsh policy of defending without any attempt at deterrence and attack, a policy that gravely harms the State of Israel and each and every one of its residents,” the forum stated.

The forum also called the leadership to “take responsibility for the army and the lives of the citizens, immediately change the policy of interceptions, and the defense concept. This isn’t what we have evacuated our home for, for eight months. It is time for war in the north!”