<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> WorldTribune.com: Mobile — Israel's military push to stay in West Bank to stop rocket attacks

Israel's military push to stay in West Bank to stop rocket attacks

Friday, March 21, 2008 Free Headline Alerts

TEL AVIV — Members of the General Staff have warned the government and Knesset that an Israeli military withdrawal would turn the West Bank into a base for Palestinian missile strikes against the Jewish state.

"Professionally speaking, if Israel wants to prevent any high-trajectory rocket or mortar fire, it must establish good control on the ground," Israel Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan said. "In the West Bank, Israel has control over the external perimeter and can control the entrance of weapons inside the area."

In a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Nehushtan said Israeli control of the West Bank has prevented Palestinian missile and rocket strikes. He contrasted this with the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Hamas regime.

"In Lebanon, well-organized shipments of weapons flow across an open border with Syria," the report, titled "How Will the IDF Confront Regional Threats? A Strategic Overview," said. "Gaza is open along the Egyptian border. The West Bank is not open and the weapons don't flow in with the same freedom."

Nehushtan, appointed in early March, said the Israeli military sought to stop Palestinian rocket and missile assembly in the West Bank, aided by know-how from the Internet. He said the military, with access throughout the West Bank, contained the intelligence to foil Palestinian missile and rocket development and production.

"Furthermore, if Israeli forces are present on the ground, then they can stop the manufacture of locally-produced rockets and other weapons in time," Nehushtan said.

In his address, Nehushtan, who left his position as head of the Planning Directorate, suggested that the Israeli military recapture the Gaza Strip. He cited Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, in which the military captured Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

"It took a few years, but we managed to establish a different kind of control," Nehushtan said. "The motivation of suicide bombers in the West Bank did not recede, but their capabilities did. Thus, ongoing activity in the West Bank remains necessary to maintain this situation. In Gaza, as well, the IDF will do what it is instructed to do."

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