The series of earthquakes that has rattled northern Israel over the past week has prompted the Defense Ministry to summon an emergency conference on disaster readiness.
The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, will include officials from the Defense, Interior and Public Security ministries, the Homefront Command, Israel Police, Magen David Adom emergency services, Fire and Rescue Services and the National Emergency Management Administration, as well as mayors nationwide.
The Geophysical Institute of Israel said that while Israelis felt about a dozen quakes, over 50 tremors have been recorded in the past week, ranging from 2.1 to 4.5 in magnitude.
Zionist Union MK Amir Peretz, who heads the Knesset's Subcommittee for Homefront Emergency Readiness, has called a meeting of the forum for Thursday.
Security and emergency services officials are expected to brief committee members on extreme-case scenarios for Israel in the event of a major earthquake.
Modern-day Israel lies on the western side of the Great Rift Valley, a divergent boundary between two major tectonic plates. At least two massive earthquakes have hit this fault system: the 1837 Galilee earthquake, which experts believe measured 6.5 on the Richter scale or higher, and which wreaked havoc on the northern city of Safed and the surrounding area, killing thousands of people; and the 1927 Jericho earthquake, believed to have been a 6.2-magnitude tremor, which inflicted massive damage on the Jerusalem and Jericho areas and killed 287 people.
Multiple state comptrollers have warned that Israel is ill-equipped to deal with a major earthquake.
In 2015, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira warned that Israel's failures in this arena were severe, saying that according to emergency officials' assessments, if a 7.5-magnitude tremor were to hit northern Israel, its effects would be felt nationwide.
The extreme-case scenario will see this quake kill 16,000 Israelis; over 6,000 would be wounded; 10,000 buildings would collapse, 20,000 others would sustain serious damage, and over 100,000 buildings would sustain minor to moderate damage, resulting in the temporary or permanent displacement of 377,000 people.
A tremor of this kind would also destroy a significant part of Israel's road infrastructure, as it would cause at least 72 bridges and dozens of major highway interchanges to collapse.
"There is no way for us to prevent earthquakes but the homefront can prepare for them and that is the government's responsibility," Peretz said.
"A national emergency plan must be prepared and implemented by the state before a deadly earthquake hits us."
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman rejected criticism over the issue, saying, "In June 2017, the Defense Ministry led the biggest earthquake drill ever held in Israel. In January 2018 we released the findings of that drill and the Homefront Command subsequently formulated a five-year plan to improve civilian readiness for earthquakes.
"The ball is in the National Security Council's court. They have to call a cabinet meeting on the matter. I hope such a meeting is called and we made the necessary decisions soon."
