Israeli reservists ready for action

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Jerusalem

Almost everyone in Israel knows someone currently on duty

Yakir Segev, 27, was supposed to spend this August hiking in the mountains of northern Israel with his wife and their one-year-old son.

Instead, Mr Segev is sleeping outdoors beside a column of tanks close to the Israeli - Lebanese border awaiting orders to deploy into southern Lebanon.

"I was expecting the call, I knew it was coming, I was ready," says Mr Segev, who was visiting his mother in Tel Aviv last Friday for Shabbat dinner when he was told by the army to mobilise.

Two hours later he was travelling in his car to a military base in the north of Israel.

"I was at peace with doing it. Unfortunately reserve duty is a normal part of our lives in Israel."

Vital reserves

The reserve platoon commander is one of thousands of Israeli citizens called up by the military to bolster the country's war effort as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants continues into its fourth week.

Because of Israel's small population of about 6.4 million citizens, it depends heavily on the reserves in times of war.

A Hezbollah rocket killed 12 reservists on Sunday

While Israel refuses to say how many reservists have been called, some media estimates say the figure is about 15,000 soldiers.

Almost everyone in Israel knows someone currently serving reserve duty.

Israel's standing army of about 186,500 troops can jump to 631,500 with a mass call-up of reserve soldiers, according to the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv.

Most 18-year-old Israelis, men and women, serve two to three years of military service in the army.

During the current conflict, some of the reservists are heading for the West Bank replacing better trained soldiers who are transferred to Lebanon to fight Hezbollah.

But like Mr Segev, most of the soldiers willingly do reserve service even if it means disruption to their daily lives or putting themselves in danger.

On Sunday, 12 reserve soldiers were killed by a Hezbollah rocket attack on the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi in northern Israel.

"It's the clearest case of defence I can think of," says Mr Segev, a student of public administration at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "Israel was attacked within its sovereign borders by a terrorist organisation."

While opinion polls in Israeli newspapers show that an overwhelming majority of the public here support the war, there has been one high profile case of an Israeli reserve army officer refusing to fight.

Amir Fester, 32, was sentenced to 28 days in a military prison for refusing to serve in Lebanon.

Waiting for the call

As the war continues, more reserve soldiers have been notified to expect a call-up.

Many are told by a phone call, others get a brown envelope through their post boxes, while some get a text message sent to their mobiles.

I have family and friends in Haifa and I feel that this is a war on my house. Yoav Kedem, 30, youth worker

Yoav Kedem, 30, learned of a possible call-up last week.

The youth worker immediately packed a bag of clothes, sun cream, a razor, and two novels. He also removed his brown army combat boots from a cupboard in readiness for deployment.

"I want to join my friends in the north," says Mr Kedem, at his apartment in Jerusalem.

"I have family and friends in Haifa and I feel that this is a war on my house."

But his wife, Hadas, 27, is fraught with worry. She calls him up to six times a day to ask whether he has been drafted.

"But she understands that winning this war is very important for Israel's existence," says Mr Kedem.