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Israel Has No Plans to Call up Reservists: Chief of Staff
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has no plans to call up large numbers of reservists to avoid panic among the public, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz said on November 14.
Mofaz told a press conference that a large call-up would also be misinterpreted by the Palestinians.
He made the remarks against the backdrop that four Israelis were killed on Monday in separate attacks by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Since the eruption of the Israeli-Palestinian clashes on September 28, which have so far left nearly 200 people dead, most of them Palestinians, Israel has refrained from calling up the reservists though it has stepped up training of the force to enhance the readiness for possible escalation of the situation.
In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is returning home earlier than planned from his trip to the United States because of the worsening security situation in the Palestinian territories, Israel Radio reported.
Barak has also cancelled planned meetings in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. He will convene the security cabinet on his return Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, tension is increasing on the political arena due to speculations that the peace negotiations with the Palestinians will be renewed on the basis of understandings reached at the Camp David summit last July.
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office, however, denied the speculations. An official close to Barak has called Eli Yishai, chairman of the Ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, to inform him that Barak was now only preoccupied with ending the violence.
Yishai has threatened to withdraw a temporary "safety net" for the government if the peace process is resumed on the Camp David understandings.
The Shas, which has 17 seats in the parliament and quit Barak's coalition prior to the Camp David summit, agreed on October 30 not to try to topple the government for at least one month.
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