PM Olmert Tours the North
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this afternoon (Wednesday), 26.7.06, toured
northern Israel and met with 20 confrontation line mayors and local council
chairmen at the lower Galilee moshav of Kakhal.

Prime Minister Olmert also toured Safed and met with Mayor Yishai Maimon and
members of the City Council, security establishment and rescue service
representatives, GOC Home Front Command Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Gershon, Israel
Police Northern District Commander Dan Ronen, Ziv Medical Center Director
Dr. Oscar Ambon and other senior officials. The Prime Minister was briefed
on actions being taken in the city due to the emergency situation in both
the military and civilian spheres.

Prime Minister Olmert expressed his support for Mayor Maimon and said that
the visit gave him strength of heart. The Prime Minister added: "We are
conducting a war that is different from all those that we have waged in the
past. Even though it was unplanned, two weeks after it began, the country
is rendering all possible assistance to the home front, which has become a
battlefront. The operation will not go on for months even if it takes more
time than we anticipated; we will know how to find appropriate solutions for
residents. I do not intend to announce when we will halt the operation.
They will learn this on their own, the hard way. Our strength is what you
give to us and I hope that next year, if you invite me, I will open the
Klezmer Festival."