On the high seas with Tamar's defenders

"Globes" goes aboard an Israel Navy patrol boat protecting Israel's gas rigs.

A string of orders are rapidly given, and even the most attentive outsider would struggle to keep apace. The orders are heard throughout the deck, hull, and in the command center of the Israel Navy's Shaldag patrol boat; the communications system is in excellent operating order. The 11-man crew comprises trained sailors, who have already memorized the combat doctrine and experienced at sea, obey immediately. Within seconds, they don ceramic flack jackets, upgraded helmets, and man their stations. They are well trained and have fire in their eyes; they know the importance of the mission to protect Israel's natural gas infrastructures that drive the economy.

The Shaldag is the warhorse of the Navy's patrol operations, with a top speed of 42 knots. This is high speed on the water and critical for a patrol boats, whose crews are required to respond instantaneously to developments on the high seas: the morning intelligence update for Patrol Squadron 916 at the Ashdod Naval Base mentioned several unpleasant "gifts" that terrorist organizations in Gaza are preparing: fire from shore at Israeli ships; an explosive boat steered by a suicide terrorist; and a general alert about intentions to attack the Tamar production platform or Mari B rig.

You have to be there, more than ten nautical miles offshore, to understand how small is the distance and determined terrorist from Gaza has to cover to attack one of the platforms. Only there, a few hundred meters from the two huge platforms that rise from the sea, is it possible to grasp just how difficult, but how critical, it is to protect them.

The sky is clear, the sea is calm, and the Shaldag patrols between the Mari B rig and the Tamar platform. Even after hundreds of hours at sea, the sailors on the bridge are still excited by two dolphins that breached alongside the fast-moving warship leaving a white wake behind it. But military operations leave little time for excitement at dolphins or other animals: two Wasps,-small patrol boats of the Ashdod Patrol Squadron, which are headed to link up for training with a Navy missile corvette at sea, simulate terrorist suicide boats, giving the Shaldag crew an impromptu exercise of an attack that they must frustrate - immediately. There is no time for questions or thought: the machine gun is armed and manned, the combat center already understands the picture and knows where the targets are.

The crew on the bridge give orders quickly, the most important of which is something like, "Hold on tight." Hold on to what? Whatever is at hand, on the condition that it is lashed down and holding it does not inadvertently release a burst of bullets at someone.

Our forces are safe

Five to ten seconds more - but who is counting? - and the Shaldag makes a high-speed starboard turn at an angle that resembles an amusement park rollercoaster, highlighting the need to listen carefully to the sailors' voices. The "battle" is conducted fast, and the next hard maneuver is just seconds away. One dummy target has already been destroyed in this naval exercise. The machine gun points to the next target, which is heading straight for the Shaldag at high speed, riding in its wake. The machine gunner puts the target in his sights, shouting "fire, fire, fire", and says that he saw direct hits. The "attack" is foiled, and all our forces are safe.

"If a yachtsman is fishing for pleasure, taking the sun, and all this is happening around us, he'll think that we're children fooling around and causing trouble because we feel like, because that is what children do. Go tell him that this is life," says 36-year old Lt.-Col. A., who quickly sends the two Wasps on their way to their training mission with the missile corvettes on the high seas. The Wasps will simulate a swarm-style attack for missile corvette's crew, an attack involving multiple vessels simultaneously attacking the ship from multiple directions. This is not an unreasonable scenario in the security reality offshore from southern Israel. "There was already an attempt to carry out such an attack three years ago in the Gaza sector. We were alert and we knew how to function well to emerge safely from it," says Lt. Col. A. Yes, this is real life.

A hot sector

The southern sector is the Navy's hottest sector: it has to enforce the Gaza blockade; hundreds of vessels offshore from the Gaza Strip, mostly fishing boats under the cover of which terrorists gather intelligence for planning attacks against military and civilian targets; the gas infrastructures that are critical for the economy; and the backdrop of unceasing attempts to smuggle arms into Gaza by sea. The Shaldag's sailors feel that Gazans hate them, because they enforce the naval blockade.

Hatred of the sailors has heightened in recent weeks, because they disrupted arms smuggling from Sinai. Lt. Col. A. was on a Dvora Mark III class patrol boat that did the job that night, and he gives a first-hand account. "We closely monitored them. We saw two Gazan boats enter Egyptian waters, and reach a beach in Sinai. Later, loaded with equipment they headed back to Gaza camouflaged as fishing boats.

"We can identify the fishermen. Except for the boats, which could be used for fishing, there was no sign that they were engaged in fishing, and the men on board did not act like fishermen. They knew what they were doing. They were very determined, and they tried to evade us by maneuvering between dozens of other Palestinian boats sailing in the area.

"The incident began to develop, and we continued our constant monitoring. It was clear to us beyond a doubt that this was smuggling. A few hundred meters from the Gaza coast, we opened accurate fire at them from a few kilometers using the Typhoon cannon on deck."

A few hours later, the Palestinians reported that four men were wounded in the attack. Lt. Col. A. reported that two targets had been destroyed without question. "When so much munitions explodes, you can see it from kilometers away, even with the maked eye. I was there and I saw two fireballs that lasted until the dawn. How do you feel after such an incident? You feel great because we did the job," he says.

"Now I know that we're an even bigger target for them. They see us as the bad guys who hurt them. Here, everything is as personal as it can get. That is why such an incident and understanding its significance put us on higher alert. We're simply careful."

Sensitive and explosive

The guiding light of all this naval patrolling activity is the monitor of the Navy's central command system developed by its computer division. Navy chief of staff Rear Admiral Yaron Levy's eyes shine when he talks about it. "Even senior US Navy officers are excited by it. Believe me, if we could sell this to foreign navies, we'd solve many of the IDF's financial problems," he says.

"The system fits the Navy's most up-to-date needs like a glove, thanks to ability to indicate the precise location of every vessel in Israeli waters at any given moment, mark threatening vessels in red, unidentified vessels in purple, and identified and unthreatening vessels in green. It has many other features that help the Navy control Israel's waters, which is double the size of the country's land area. Of course we cannot tell you everything.

To give a sense of the system, even a waterski rider a few hundred meters from shore is marked on the system's screens, and will be closely monitored to check his intentions. "Israel's shores are covered by radar. That is the only way to ensure that the country's commerce will continue as usual, since 60% of Israel's GDP depends on it," says Levy. "At any given moment, there are between 300 and 1,300 vessels in our waters. We identify all of them, and if necessary, we check them."

"There is no such thing as an unidentified vessel that approaches one of the platforms. If that were to happen, I'll have failed in my mission to protect a defined buffer zone. Our mission is to secure this place, which is the Israeli economy's energy artery, and we do this round-the-clock in full coordination with the platforms' staff. We update them about alerts, and they participate in training and exercises. After all, in the event of a combined incident, we'll be working together," says Lt.-Col. A. He admits that the job requires especially strong nerves to sleep well at night.

Vessels that approach within seven miles of the platforms will be intercepted by one of the Navy's patrol boats. The intruder will be ordered to leave, and if it refuses, warning shots will be fired. This happens on a daily basis, because Gaza fishermen like to insist on their right to fish wherever they feel like it. "If we were not in the sector, the Palestinian fishermen would sail directly to the platforms to fish beneath them. With motorized vessels, they could reach the platforms within minutes. They don’t go there only because we're in the field. They sometimes sail toward the platforms like a swarm of zealots to take them over. Sometimes, Egyptian boats direct their bows toward the platforms. If we don’t stop them, they will be there. It's no laughing matter. These are gas platforms and you don’t have to plan an al-Qaeda style mega-attack; a single spark is enough. Everything is sensitive and explosive."

In the coming months, the Navy will decide on the procurement of new ships to expand its defense capabilities for the gas infrastructures in the Mediterranean and in Israel's exclusive economic zone. The Navy will reportedly procure three or four new patrol boats customized to its updated operational specifications.

However, four years will pass from the order for the ships and other equipment until they become operational. "Our present forces are small," says Levy "Nonetheless, with these forces, we do ten times more than navies bigger than us do. The new ships that we'll procure will be the strong arm in the defensive response that we're preparing for the critical infrastructures and the exclusive economic zone."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 17, 2014

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014

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