170,000 Miles Pointed At Israel, Say Aviv Kochavi by Benson Agoha

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Israel faces serious threat from mile attacks with as much as 170,000 pointed at the Jewish state, Israeli Defence Force's Chief, Aviv Kochavi said today.

And the figure of 170,000 represents a reduction from previous numbers.

The IDF Chief was speaking at the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) think tank’s annual conference in Tel Aviv, described a Middle East in a historic flux, producing an array of challenges and opportunities.

The inteligence chief said that while the amount of missiles aimed at Israel has decreased, their accuracy and lethality has been dramatically improved

Media reports quotes the chief as saying "Some 170,000 rockets and missiles are threatening the State of Israel from all regions. Up until recently, the number was much greater and it has decreased, but it will go up again"..adding "They are much more precise and a lot more lethal. The most significant thing we would like to point out is the fact that the enemy has the capability to land mass amounts of arms on Israeli cities."

With respect to Nuclear threats from Iran, the chief said Iran "continues in a manner that allows for, if a decision is made, advancement and developing a bomb. At the same time, we are still facing conventional threat and still have the need to establish our power against militaries. They may not be in the highest level of competence over the past years, but they can regain it" he said.

Adding "There are also many terror groups, including semi-military terror groups. We can't keep referring to Hezbollah as a terror group in the simple sense of the term – an organization that possesses more than a 100,000 rockets, including hundreds of different kinds of advanced antitank missiles, advanced mortar shells can no longer be a referred to as a terror group in the simple sense of the term. And the same goes for Hamas."

But he said Israel was capable of defending itself, revealing that IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, already the largest of the army’s corps, has recently expanded further and shifted both its methodology and, more significantly, its approach.

He said that where once a state’s intelligence service was expected to describe reality, today it must also “take part” and alter it.

But even if 170,000 missiles is still seen as an alarming figure, the chief said that even more serious threats are expected to come from cyber attacks in the future.

The chief said the increasing cyber threat had revealed hundreds of attacks targeting various organizations in Israel - specifically defense targets, adding "Fortunately, most attacks were foiled, but the ability to carry out such attacks is almost unlimited."

He reviewed the syrian conflict and said al Qaeda still maintain at least three bases inside Turkey, even though they do not always stay there to avoid detection.

He said Hezbollah and Hamas had grown more than just terror organisations, possessing as much as, and even more than "100,000 rockets".

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