How Israel is preparing to keep lights and water running in event of ...

Israeli utilities have deployed backup generators, filled water reservoirs to the brim and stepped up cyber defenses in case the Gaza conflict triggers war against Israel on multiple fronts.

The energy minister has told Israelis there is no need to panic about the possibility of blackouts and energy supply disruptions, as Israel has a wide variety of sources to generate electricity.

But many Israelis showed their concerns by buying household generators and stocking up on emergency supplies even before an Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel on April 13, and some vulnerabilities are clear.

While Israel has not suffered anything like the damage to power supplies and infrastructure that its Gaza offensive has wrought on the enclave, it was forced to shut its offshore Tamar gas rig for a few weeks as a precaution when the war began.

A full conflict with Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, which has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, would raise concerns about the security of Israel’s Leviathan field farther north.

There is also the chance, industry officials say, that Israel’s air defenses would be overwhelmed during a full-blown war and that falling debris from mid-air missile interceptions would damage critical infrastructure.

The Orot Rabin Israel Electric Corporation coal-powered power plant, on the Mediterranean coast in the city of Hadera, May 10 2009. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

Israel’s Defense Ministry and military did not respond to Reuters questions about preparations for such scenarios.

But state-owned utilities are now on a war footing, stockpiling inventory and fixing equipment damaged along the Gaza and Lebanon fronts, sometimes under fire. Four electricity workers have been killed while at work since October.

“We have generators spread out across the country. Since October 7, all our generators are deployed,” said Tamar Fekler, vice president of operations and logistics at Israel Electric Corporation (IEC). “If the grid is damaged, within seven minutes the generator comes online and returns electricity to the grid.”

If one power plant is hit, she said, it is relatively easy to bring electricity from another. But handling the smaller substations that distribute electricity to specific areas is a bigger challenge. IEC has prepared temporary substations as backup, but even that might not be enough, Fekler said.

“There is no guarantee here. If tomorrow, heaven forbid, hundreds of missiles are intercepted and cause harm to dozens of substations, we will apparently be in a different situation,” she said.

Depending on the extent of the damage, this could mean two to three days of no electricity in large parts of Israel, officials say. In extreme cases, the period without electricity could be even longer.

Should this happen, power supply will be prioritized for hospitals, desalination plants, military facilities, and other critical infrastructure, Fekler said.

A worker from the Israel Electricity Corporation seen repairing a fault in the electricity networks. August 29, 2020 (Yossi Aloni/FLASH90)

Reservoirs full

Israel’s allies have repeatedly warned of a regional conflict since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by a devastating cross-border raid on Israel by the Palestinian terror group Hamas which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The roughly 3,000 attackers who burst into the south of the country from the Gaza Strip also abducted 253 people of all ages who were taken as hostages into the Palestinian enclave.

Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas, topple its Gaza regime, and free the hostages, of whom 129 remain in captivity, around a quarter believed no longer alive.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 34,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Steps by Israeli national water carrier Mekorot to prepare for the worst-case scenario include filling its reservoirs and setting up a backup power system that it says can ensure supplies for at least a week during rolling blackouts.

“Mekorot keeps storage ponds all over the country, as well as continued pumping from the Sea of Galilee, in order to maintain a supply of water for all needs,” said deputy CEO Daniel Soffer, whose company relies heavily on an array of energy-hungry desalination plants.

Water reservoir in Netufa (Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90)

The utilities say they are facing an increase in cyberattacks during the war.

Check Point Software Technologies, the biggest cybersecurity company in Israel, has detected a doubling of cyberattacks on Israeli organizations since October.

“Much of that increase stems from Iranian groups,” Check Point CEO Gil Shwed told reporters in a conference call. “We specifically have identified 10 types of attacks. Five coming from Iran, according to our sourcing, and five from Hezbollah, which is also backed up by Iran.”

“We are seeing that the Iranians have a significant impact, including attacks to take control of infrastructure, hospitals, educational institutes, critical infrastructure,” he said.

The Iranian missile and drone attack in mid-April was unprecedented but caused no major damage.

Illustrative: The Tamar gas field. (NewMed Energy/Delek Drilling)

When Israel was forced at the start of the Gaza war to temporarily shut production at the Tamar gas rig, its main supply of power, it compensated with extra supplies from the export-oriented Leviathan field.

Leviathan, however, is in range of Hezbollah missiles and could also be at risk of temporary closure if exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border escalated into all-out war.

“There is no real reason to panic,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen said at the time of Iran’s attack. “Israel has the ability to generate electricity from a big variety of sources spread out across the country — above ground, deep underground, and at sea.”

“We have gas rigs, reserves of diesel fuel, independent reserves of coal, and we are generating a lot of electricity from renewable energy sources in many areas,” he said.