"Somebody has to be there to sign for it," said delivery man Rosh Katann.
Ashdod, August 20 - In anticipation of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, the IDF has said it will deploy an Iron Dome antimissile battery to protect the area of this port city, and that the country must stay home between the hours of ten in the morning and five in the afternoon today to take delivery.
An Islamic Jihad leader currently in administrative detention began a hunger strike two months ago, and was eventually hospitalized. Islamic Jihad vowed violence against Israel if the man dies, while others have debated the legality and wisdom of force-feeding him. The IDF decided to move an Iron Dome battery into position to protect Ashdod, Israel's second-busiest port city, in case the threats materialize. In the meantime, however, Israel must forfeit a day of work to receive the system.
"Somebody has to be there to sign for it," said delivery man Rosh Katann. "With traffic and other unpredictable factors, we can only give an approximate window for delivery. That's just the way it is."
The size of the delivery window has Israel grumbling even with the acknowledgement that a precise time would be impossible, and that it would be unfair to require delivery outside of normal work hours. "I know I can't expect the delivery people to know exactly what time they're going to show up, but do they really need all day? It's not as if they have some other Iron Dome battery to deliver, so what's with the uncertainty?"
Katann dismissed the criticism, saying that Iron Domes are not the only items he delivers. "I have a whole bunch of deliveries to make. I can't predict how long each one will take. I start work at eight in the morning, and I have to allow a certain minimum number of minutes to get to each location, and there's no way to know whether there will be a convenient place to park, or how long it will take to unload. So yeah, maybe I'll finish with my first delivery in record time, and you can be back at work soon after, but maybe I'll have to drive around for an hour looking for a good spot, and that's even assuming the customer got my message at 11 pm last night telling him we're coming today. It might actually take a long time." He added that there are strict regulations as to the number of hours truck drivers are allowed to work, and that both he and his supervisors could get in big trouble if they tried to be more accommodating.
At press time, Israel was yelling at customer service over the discovery that the installation team only visits that part of the country on Wednesdays, and would not be available until the middle of next week.