- TEL AVIV -- Israel's military
has launched a build-up along the borders with Lebanon and Syria.
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- Israel's military has sent an additional artillery battery
and summoned three battalions for the build-up in the north. The build-up
was said to have been the largest in the area since the Israeli withdrawal
from Lebanon in May 2000.
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- Military sources said the mobilization was ordered by
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who overruled a recommendation by Chief of
Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon. The sources said Ya'alon drafted plans for
a more modest reinforcement in the north.
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- The Israeli military build-up came in wake of Hizbullah
rocket and mortar attacks on civilian and military positions along the
northern Israeli border on Monday and Tuesday. The sources said Mofaz intends
to use the build-up to deter Hizbullah from continuing its attacks.
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- Hizbullah, the sources said, has been ordered to escalate
military tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border in wake of the Israeli
air strike on a Palestinian training facility outside Damascus on Sunday.
The sources said Iran and Syria have used Hizbullah in a proxy war against
Israel.
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- On Wednesday, the Lebanese military reported that six
Israeli warplanes flew throughout Lebanon. The Hizbullah-owned Al Manar
television said two of the Israeli jets shattered the sound barrier over
Beirut.
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- The sources said the Israeli build-up would comprise
of standing army forces and include the early return of combat units that
had been on vacation. They said the reinforced deployment in the north
would last until at least Oct. 22.
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- Mofaz would ask the government for the mobilization of
reserves if the tension in the north continues beyond Oct. 22, the sources
said. They said mobilization of the reserves would cost millions of dollars
and signal the prospect of a large-scale military operation.
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- The sources said the current alert along the northern
border has prompted a decision by Mofaz to cancel all exercises. They said
the bolstering of troops along the northern border would also affect the
deployment of troops in the West Bank, which has been a launching pad for
Islamic suicide attacks inside Israel.
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- On Wednesday, Israel's military surrounded all Arab-populated
cities in the West Bank and sliced the Gaza Strip into four areas. The
sources said the measures were in response to 37 alerts of suicide and
other Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilian targets.
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- Israeli ministers discussed the military reinforcement
during its meeting on Wednesday in a move that could triple the number
of troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mofaz told the Cabinet that
he would order reserves to man roadblocks and military patrols in and around
Palestinian Authority areas.
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- On Oct. 6, Israel placed its military on alert along
the borders of Israel and Syria.
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- The military alert was ordered on Monday in wake of two
attacks by Hizbullah along Israel's border with Lebanon in which an Israeli
soldier was killed. Hizbullah launched automatic weapon, rocket and mortar
fire toward Israeli military posts along the Israeli border on Monday and
early Tuesday in what officials deemed retaliation for an Israeli air strike
on a Palestinian training base near Damascus.
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- Maj. Gen. Benny Ganz, head of Israel's military Northern
Command, warned Lebanon and Syria against escalating tension with Israel
and did not rule out additional attacks. Ganz said Syria would be held
responsible for attacks by those trained in that country.
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- "We want to tell them that Syria is a major agent
for terror and engages constantly in a war of proxy," Ganz said on
Tuesday. "The [Israeli air] attack was a signal Syria that this cannot
continue."
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- Officials said Sunday's air strike against the Ein Saheb
training facility 15 kilometers northwest of Damascus was meant to send
a message to the regime of President Bashar Assad that it would become
a target for Israeli retaliation for Palestinian insurgency attacks. The
officials said the attack came after several diplomatic warnings to Damascus,
which serves as headquarters of Islamic Jihad, were sent through the European
Union and the United States.
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- "The attack on the north has the potential for escalation,"
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,
said. "But we can't be sitting ducks."
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- U.S. President George Bush has expressed concern over
a military escalation in the Middle East. Bush telephoned Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon after the Israeli strike on the Palestinian camp
as U.S. officials said the Bush administration was not informed in advance
of the air attack.
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- "I think the point we're at now it's important to
urge Israel to urge Syria not to do anything that would escalate the situation,
not to do anything that would heighten tensions in the region," White
House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "And that's what we're doing."
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- Israeli military sources said F-16 fighter-jets struck
the Ein Saheb base on early Sunday, hours after 19 Israelis were killed
in an Islamic Jihad suicide strike in the northern city of Haifa. The sources
said the F-16s dropped several bombs and fired missiles toward buildings
in the training base in the first such attack in more than 20 years. The
pilots were said to have reported direct hits and the base was heavily
damaged.
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- The base was said to have been used by Hamas and Islamic
Jihad for training of their members. The sources said many of the Palestinian
insurgents, financed by Iran, were then sent to the West Bank where they
provided training to other Palestinians.
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- "We struck a base 15 kilometers from Damascus,"
Israeli Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman said. "We can also
reach Damascus."
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