Israel seeks to calm border tensions at start of missile drill

by **Admin** Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:33 am

Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought to reassure Syria and Lebanon on
Sunday that Israel did not want a major missile attack drill to worsen
tensions along its northern border.

"The goal of the exercise
is to check the authorities' ability to carry out their duties in time
of emergency and for preparing the home front for different scenarios,"
Olmert said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.

"There
is nothing else hidden behind it. All the reports on tension in the
north can be moderated and cooled down. We have no secret plans," he
added.

A
five-day nationwide exercise simulating air and missile attacks on
cities, including by non-conventional weapons, began on Sunday, the
army said.

Over
the next few days emergency sirens will be sounded across the country
and schoolchildren will practice entering shelters and protected spaces
in the event of chemical and biological weapons attacks on Israel.

The emergency services will also for the first time broadcast on TV tutorial videos explaining how to act during an attack.

The
planned exercise comes after local media last week reported heightened
tensions along Israel's heavily guarded border with Syria and days
after Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora put his armed forces on
alert.
Siniora
also asked UN peacekeepers tasked with monitoring the border, "to be
careful" that Israel will not use the manoeuvres "to launch operations
capable of increasing tension," a statement from his office said.

Israel has repeatedly said the drills are purely aimed at preparing emergency services and civilians to respond to an attack.

"As far as I know the Syrians know this and there is no need to give the exercise a different interpretation," Olmert said.

"We
are interested in negotiations for peace with the Syrians. They know
exactly what our expectations are, we know their expectations, and if
the circumstances allow this, that is where we would like to head,"
Olmert said.
The
last round of negotiations between the two neighbours, technically at
war since 1948, broke down in 2000 over disagreements over the
strategic Golan Heights plateau, which Israel seized in the 1967 war
and annexed in 1981.

Israel's
Defence Minister Ehud Barak earlier said that "the northern front is
particularly volatile, but we don't want any degradation and the other
side knows it and we also think that the other side doesn't want a
degradation."

He added, however, that Israel was "ready to confront any development."

Barak
said the exercises were primarily aimed at "learning lessons" from the
Second Lebanon War in 2006, during which more than 4,000 rockets fired
by the Hezbollah militia slammed into northern Israel.

An
official investigation of the war harshly criticised Israel's military
and political leadership for failing to protect civilians during the
34-day conflict.

Picture:
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attends a meeting with Bank of
Israel Governor Stanley Fischer (not pictured) in Jerusalem April 1,
2008. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (JERUSALEM)