Home Front Command Chief at the Ramat Gan Site Where Two Died

The commander of the Israel Defense Forces' Home Front Command, Major General Ori Gordin, visited an impact site in Ramat Gan, in the centre of the country, where two civilians were killed. “I visited the impact site in Ramat Gan, this is a very difficult scene,” he said in a statement issued by the military. “Two civilians were killed in the incident and I wish to express my sincere condolences to their families.”

Gordin also praised the response. “I wish to strengthen the Ramat Gan Municipality and all emergency organizations for their rapid and professional response,” he said. “Home Front Command forces are operating at every scene, conducting searches and providing assistance to civilians.” The statement gave no further detail about the strike or the victims.

The command that runs Israel's civil defence

The Home Front Command is a regional command of the IDF created in February 1992, in direct response to the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraqi missiles hit Israeli cities and exposed how little the army was set up to protect civilians. Its brief is to prepare the civilian space before a conflict, support it during one, carry out search and rescue, and help restore normal life afterwards. It drafts civil defence regulations, trains local authorities, runs the 104 emergency line, and since 2021 has operated a smartphone application delivering localised alerts, according to a reference account of the command. Its search and rescue units, of the kind Gordin describes working at impact sites, are the formations that dig through collapsed buildings.

Ramat Gan and the missile campaign on Gush Dan

Ramat Gan is a city of roughly 172,000 people immediately east of Tel Aviv and part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area, home to the Diamond Exchange district and the Sheba Medical Center, according to a reference profile. Dense central Israel has been the main target of Iran's long-range fire. Times of Israel live coverage of 18 March 2026 recorded multiple Iranian ballistic missile barrages that night, two people killed by a direct strike in Ramat Gan, a foreign worker killed at Moshav Adanim, and an IDF assessment that roughly half the missiles fired carried cluster warheads, scattering submunitions across central Israel. Sirens and impacts were reported that night from Jerusalem to the Gaza border.

What Israelis are told to do

Homes built in Israel since 1992 must have a reinforced room; those in older blocks use communal or public shelters, which means leaving the flat when the siren sounds. In July 2025 the Knesset passed a law letting residents of existing buildings enlarge those rooms and requiring the Home Front Command to add lockable doors and shock-resistant windows, the Times of Israel reported.

What is still unclear

The statement does not name the two civilians killed, give their ages, say what struck the building, or give any figure for the wounded. It does not say when Gordin's visit took place or how many sites his forces were working at. There is also a discrepancy the release does not address: the Times of Israel reported in July 2025 that Brig. Gen. Shai Klepper had been promoted to head the Home Front Command and that Gordin, leaving Northern Command, was expected to take a break from the military for study, per its account of that round of appointments. Israel.com has not been able to confirm who held the post in March 2026.