"The writing is on the wall, we must not wait for the next disaster": the comptroller's report that warned of the failure

Following a fallen ordnance disaster on the Ramim Ridge in which one person was killed and 19 wounded, a State Comptroller's report from May 2025 is being re-examined. The report warned of the absence of evacuation plans, budgetary delays and danger to human life, but focused on closed industrial and military compounds, not on clearing fallen ordnance in open combat zones.

The disaster on the Ramim Ridge, in which one person was killed and 19 students and teachers from the middle school at the Ort Ma'alot yeshiva high school were wounded by an ammunition-fall explosion, has resurfaced the question of how the State of Israel deals systemically with fallen ordnance. In May 2025 State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman published a sharp report criticising the conduct of government ministries and warning of inadequate handling. At the centre of the report stood the TA'ASH compound in Yavne, where fallen ordnance and explosives remained in extensive quantities. The comptroller revealed that the Defence Ministry had no orderly plan to clear the compound; a year earlier the Authority for Clearing Mines and Fallen Ordnance had described the site as a "ticking bomb". The comptroller found that the state spends about 1.8 million shekels a year on guarding and arnona at the Yavne compound, but allocates no resources to completing its clearance. However, defence establishment sources stress a substantive difference: the report focused on fallen ordnance in closed industrial and military compounds, and did not examine the clearing of missile and rocket debris in open areas after a war. The Ramim Ridge incident, a combat zone opposite Hezbollah that had received hiking approval, concerns Home Front Command activity and the police bomb-disposal array.