Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited the scene of the Turning Point 6 emergency drill Sunday and said that the scenario of a missile attack on central Israel is a “very practical” one. While the drill is supposedly meant to rehearse an earthquake situation, Barak was not trying to hide the fact that he was more concerned about a possible war scenario.

“Practicing is very important,” Barak said. “It prepares the entire system for very difficult extreme situations, both mentally and operationally.

Standing against the backdrop of mock casualties, he said: “Take this scenario, multiply it by several hundred and you get the picture.”

“This prepares us from the scenario of an earthquake, which is truly a very distant one, to the very practical scenarios that we experienced here a few years ago on a small scale, and that we could find ourselves in with missile attacks on central Israel,” he explained.

In that case, he said, “the same people, the same soldiers, the same emergency services,” will be called up to deal with the situation.

He praised the effort made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in preparing the home front for a war situation, including the meetings Netanyahu holds ion a biweekly basis to assess progress in emergency preparedness.