IOF Hasn’t Maintained the Vehicles in the Emergency Depots & Now We Are Obliged to Replace Them by Old US Vehicles
Translated by Staff, Hodhodpal.com
The “Israeli” Occupation Forces [IOF] decided to buy about 1000 vehicles from the US army, most of which are used. The vehicles will be kept in the emergency depots to be used only in times of wars. The cost of the deal has not been disclosed, but it can be estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars at the very least.
The vehicles being purchased are FMTV series tactical trucks produced by the American manufacturer Oshkosh. These vehicles will arrive to the occupied Palestinian territories in different versions –with four or six wheels and of various kinds of chassis. These trucks are designed to be used in rough terrains and can transport ammunition and equipment, and evacuate the wounded.
The IOF equipped itself with 200 new trucks of this type four years ago, but the current order – which is larger –mainly includes used trucks aged 20 and 30 years. These vehicles will be purchased with American aid money and will undergo minimal maintenances while most of them will directly go to the IOF emergency depots.
The procurement delegation from the US Department of the Army leads the procurement process that began about three years ago. The IOF has a vehicle laboratory in the US, which will decide which trucks can be refurbished and exported to the “Israeli” entity.
The IOF has plenty of REO trucks which date back to 1970s in the depots, but they were poorly maintained making them unrepairable or usable. According to army officials, some of the trucks were stored under asbestos roofs and the army did not move them to other depots that would allow mechanic to repair them without affecting them [asbestos is harmful].
In the past decade, reports concerning the inefficiency of equipment in emergency depots, among other matters that require supervision from the state comptroller and soldiers’ complaints commissioner to deal with the lack of skilled cadre in the emergency depots which led to the negligence of the stored weapons and equipment have been published. This matter was addressed by Major General [Res.] Yitzhak Brik.
In 2013, the Advanced Technology Laboratories [ATL] in the IOF issued a report – as mentioned by the 2015 “state comptroller’s” report – about the gaps in the efficiency of expired vehicles and tires in every regional command and the periodic lack of maintenance of armored combat vehicles.
The investigation concluded that there is no ability to maintain a stable routine for the controlled combat equipment, with a risk of the ability to support the transition from stable to emergency status.
Moreover, Brik wrote in 2015 a report about the human staff in the emergency depots and its direct effect on the quality equipment maintenance addressing that, “The shortage of manpower leads to a state of inefficiency in restoring equipment and maintaining them. This increases the fair wear and tear, which seems ridiculous, and consequently makes the financial damage in the IOF higher than the savings made through job cut of non-commissioned officers”.
In timed of emergency, the IOF may mobilize civilian trucks although these are intended for on-road travel, while tactical trucks are for battlefield supply, and thus are required to be highly mobile and durable.
The US Department of the Army is scheduled to publish soon another tender to import locomotive trucks that transport heavy tanks. It is expected that these trucks will be purchased from European companies to be maintained in civilian garages. Meanwhile, the IOF will undertake maintaining the tank-transporting trailers.
