November 11,2008: The Israeli military recently held a four day exercise, mostly with air force and civil defense units, on how they would react to a war that involved both Syrian and Hezbollah rocket attacks, as well as attacking Syrian ground and air forces. The Israeli forces involved belonged to Northern Command, which is responsible for the defense of northern Israel. This is the second such large-scale exercise since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

Israel has already revised the organization, training and equipment of ground and air force units in Northern Command. There is a new rocket attack warning system being installed for civilians. The new system uses radars that can predict where incoming rockets will land, and only set off air raid sirens in areas where the rockets will land. This will avoid alarming large numbers of civilians, which causes a great deal of stress and anxiety among civilians. There's also the problem of too many false alarms, which causes many civilians to ignore alarms for actual attacks.

Israel got a reality check in 2006. They thought they had figured out how to deal with Hezbollah and all those short range rockets the Lebanese terrorists had aimed at them. Israel was wrong, but now they have a better idea of what they are up against, and are doing a change-up they hope will turn the tables on Hezbollah if there's another round of rockets from Lebanon. The Israelis have also noted how the Syrians have reorganized their military and adopted tactics similar to those employed by Hezbollah in 2006.