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Six army reserve battalions called up: growing threat on Egypt, Syria borders
Knesset approves IDF request to call up a further 16 battalions if needed.According to 2008′s Reserve Duty Law, combat soldiers can be called for active reserve duty once every three years, and for short training sessions during the other two. Rising tensions between Israel and Egypt and the ongoing unrest in Syria caused the army to ask the Knesset for special permission to call up more soldiers, more often. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved the request recently, enabling the IDF to summon up to 22 battalions for active duty for the second time in three years. Already, the army has called up six of them. "This signifies that the IDF regards the Egyptian and Syrian borders as the potential source of a greater threat than in the past," the former deputy chief of staff, Dan Harel, said on Wednesday night. "The army needs a better 'answer' than in the past to the threat," he said, citing Egypt's deteriorating control over the Sinai, marked by an upsurge in Bedouin smuggling of weapons and other goods. He also spoke of the growing threat of terrorism from Sinai, as exemplified by an infiltration last August in which eight Israelis were killed. The Syrian situation was also highly combustible, Harel said, "and it could explode at any moment... and pose a direct challenge to us." Maariv said the army had to decide whether to cancel training sessions for enlisted soldiers or to summon additional reserve units, and it chose the latter; canceling training would mean soldiers would not be prepared in the case of an all-out war. Posted by: trailing wife 2012-05-03 |
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