Islam Times - Israel vulnerable to Iran retaliatory attacks: Israeli lawmaker

Islam Times - Senior Israeli lawmaker Zeev Bielski says Tel Aviv’s defense capabilities do not rise high enough to protect Israel in case of a retaliatory attack by Iran.

Almost one in four Israelis lack access to bomb shelters, whether communal or reinforced rooms in private homes, Bielski told Reuters on Tuesday.

"Are we prepared for a war? No…Things are moving too slowly and we are wasting very precious time," Bielski added.

Israel’s Ministry of Military Affairs has confirmed Bielski’s remarks. This is while the regime’s minister for military affairs, Ehud Barak, claimed last November that in case of Iran’s retaliation not even 500 hundred Israeli people would be killed.

Israeli officials have recently ramped up their war rhetoric, threatening Iran with military strikes in case the US-engineered sanctions against the country fail to force Tehran into abandoning its civilian nuclear program.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on February 9 that “Israel has a large selection of ways, when the world of international sanctions fails to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program.”

The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program, using this pretext to impose sanctions against Iran and threaten the country with a military attack.

Iran has denied the allegations and promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.