Agence France-Presse,
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Tuesday it is to launch a major military exercise across the occupied West Bank simulating its response to an outbreak of Palestinian violence.
“The army will undertake a current exercise on November 18 to prepare it to better face all eventualities,” an army spokesman told AFP.
The manouevres will take place shortly before an expected US-sponsored international peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, but according to Israel's Haaretz newspaper the exercises had been planned back in July.
“The exercise is not an official preparation in case talks at Annapolis fail, though senior IDF (army) officers have been predicting for weeks that the conference has little chance of succeeding,” Haaretz said.
The drills will simulate a scenario whereby Palestinian militants carry out a wave of attacks across the West Bank amid widespread demonstrations and heightened tensions in the Gaza Strip and along the Syrian border.
Haaretz cautioned however that such war games are often deliberately exaggerated and do not reflect what the military brass actually expects will happen on the ground.
Israel and the Palestinians have been locked in intense negotiations over the past few weeks in an attempt to prepare a joint declaration to present at the US conference that will serve as a launch pad for talks.
Leaders hope to revive a peace process that has been in limbo since 2000, when similar talks broke down and a Palestinian uprising erupted across the occupied territories.
