Thousands of Israeli police and soldiers went on maximum alert Monday for what they described “feared Palestinian terror strikes” during the Jewish New Year period, reported Haaretz newspaper.
Meanwhile, police officials claimed that predictions that “Palestinian militants would refrain from attacks in the wake of the New York and Washington terror strikes had proven incorrect.”
According to Israeli analysts, Palestinians would curb suicide bombings and other operations in order to avoid being linked to the suicide fliers that demolished the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
But a police official, Dan Ronen, told Army Radio Monday: "We thought that the large strategic attack which was carried out in Manhattan would influence to a degree the terror attacks here in Israel, but in the last several days we saw that this was not so."
"Following the terror attacks in New York and Washington, any terror scenario is realistic."
In response to the terror attacks in the United States, the paper said that a large number of Israeli citizens had either exchanged or received new gas masks.
Some 5,000 gas masks were handed out at the country's 23 distribution stations on Sunday as worried citizens made preparations for the worst. Around 3,500 gas masks are handed out on a normal day.
An Israeli military spokesman said that the Home Front Command did not yet consider this "pressure," but rather an "upswing" in demand – Albawaba.com
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