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Palestinian attacks taking toll on Israeli army

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, March 19, 2002

TEL AVIV Ñ The strain on Israel's military is showing.

"The standing army is being torn apart," Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said. "They are working 24 hours a day. Soldiers are standing hours on guard duty."

Military sources said the army has cancelled all exercises amid the intensified fighting with the Palestinians. Israeli officers on leave have been asked to return to replace the scores who have been wounded or killed in battle over the last four months.

The result has been a severe shortage of manpower and a strain on resources for the standing army. Israeli leaders have resisted pressure to call up reserves to avoid raising tension with neighboring Arab states, Middle East Newsline reported.

"We are not built for a war of attrition," former Defense Minister Moshe Arens said. "There is an awareness that we must bring this to a conclusion."

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz said the military employed 20,000 soldiers in last week's raids of Palestinian refugee camps and cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The soldiers were taken from infantry, armored and engineering units.

The strain has been also felt in the intelligence corps, exhausted by a shortage in funding and personnel. As a result combat units have had difficulty obtaining Arabic-speaking officers to accompany Israeli military raids of Palestinian cities and refugee camps.

Manpower has also been stretched by the increase in military checkpoints around the West Bank. In many cases, the army has expanded personnel at checkpoints to the size of a company and constructed massive fortifications to protect the soldiers.

The General Staff has obtained permission from the government for a partial mobilization. The effort seeks volunteers among the Israeli unemployed to perform guard duty around Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as along the old 1967 border. Israeli reservists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been sent notices to report immediately for duty.

Military sources said the conflict with the Palestinians has come at the expense of other threats to Israel. They include an attack by Hizbullah from the north and the prospect of an Iraqi missile strike.

The sources said the military has concluded that Iraq could launch missiles with chemical warheads if the United States attacks Baghdad. They said the intensification of the Palestinian insurgency is meant to support Iraq and prevent U.S. efforts to form an Arab coalition against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

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