IDF's New 'Home Front Command' Warns of Imminent Danger, Attacks

JERUSALEM, Israel – The Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front Command released a new mobile application on Monday that not only warns of impending danger, but also provides instructions on how to respond.

Developed by a team of 15 soldiers in the Home Front Command, the app, which goes by the same name, pinpoints users’ locations using GPS, alerts them to security threats (from terror attacks to incoming rockets to natural disasters) in their immediate area and shows them the safest way to respond, including the closest shelter.

The app, available only in Israel for now, can be downloaded in four languages: Hebrew, English, Arabic and Russian.

Home Front Command’s Lt. Col. Shlomi Maman said the IDF would like to pinpoint alerts as accurately as possible.

“We view a warning that reaches a citizen who didn’t need to receive it just like someone who needed to receive (it) and did not,” Maman said, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. “This project is to make it [a warning] more selective.”