TEL AVIV Ñ Any aircraft entering Israel air space without authorization will trigger the nation's air defense system under new Israeli procedures designed to prevent suicide air attacks like those on September 11.
Officials said the military and civilian authorities have introduced new
regulations that deal with suspicious aircraft and people near Israeli
strategic facilities. They said the air force has also been on the alert for
attempted infiltration by hostile airplanes and is prepared to stop
suicide air crashes into such facilities as military installations,
refineries and office towers..
The air force has been ordered to shoot down any aircraft believed to
have entered Israel with hostile intentions, Middle East Newsline reported.
The measures include increased coordination between civilian air
authorities and the air force.
The coordination is meant to provide a quick
response by the air defense command to any hostile aircraft.
"Any aircraft that enters Israeli air space must be in communications
[with Israeli authorities]," Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Dan Helutz said.
"If not, this sets off the air defense system."
Officials said Hizbullah and Palestinian insurgency groups have
developed motorized gliders to launch attacks in Israel. They said such
gliders had been tested in both southern Lebanon as well as in the Gaza
Strip.
Helutz said the new measures were being considered prior to the Sept. 11
suicide attacks on New York and Washington. Helutz said that in May 2001 a
Lebanese civilian plane entered Israeli air space from Lebanon and headed
south toward Tel Aviv.
The plane was shot out of the sky before it could reach the city in what
Helutz said was the foiling of a terrorist attack. Since then, Helutz said,
Israeli civilian and military authorities have toughened their response to
intruders.
This has resulted in a new deployment of anti-aircraft missile batteries
that provides greater protection to Tel Aviv and central Israel, he said.
Previously, surface-to-air missile batteries were focused along the
country's borders and around strategic facilities.
Helutz said Israeli fighter-jets have often been sent to intercept
suspicious civilian airliners that did not follow the new communications
regulations upon entering the nation's air space.
"We are not being restrained in sending up fighter-jets in any incident
in which the [civilian airline] regulations are not being fully observed,"
Helutz said. "On a weekly basis, we are accompanying civilian aircraft that
violate the rules."
