On Sept. 10, a senior IDF Southern Command official gave JNS an exclusive briefing highlighting some of the major steps that have been taken.
At the forefront of community security is “Hagmar,” the Hebrew acronym for haganah merhavit (“regional defense”), the IDF’s local-defense framework. It relies on IDF reservists who live in the communities and serve as part of their local defense, in uniform, working hand in hand with the kitat konenut, or civilian first-response team, and the “ravshatz,” a Hebrew acronym for rakaz bitachon shotef tzahali, a civilian who coordinates directly with the IDF.
This system mirrors the local defense system that has protected communities in Judea and Samaria for more than two decades.
The kitat konenut, comprising local resident volunteers, is tasked with providing the community’s immediate response during the first minutes of a security incident. The composition of each community’s kitat konenut is determined by its size and needs. Sderot, for example, has a larger defense formation than the smaller community of Kfar Aza.
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