Israelis take out their gas masks for contingencies

Israel has improved its warning systems too after a surface-to-surface missile launch was detected. During the Gulf war, warnings were delayed as a US satellite would detect a missile launch and inform Washington which would then call Israel.

But today, a warning can be automatically relayed to Israel by a communications satellite in almost real time. Once a warning is received, it takes nine seconds to activate a network of sirens installed in all areas under threat, reports said.

Newspaper reports in Israel said the US had asked Israel to stay out of any new conflict with Iraq as it did during the 1991 Gulf conflict. However, former Israeli defence minister Moshe Arens said on Sunday that Israel would have retaliated against Iraq’s missile strikes had the US-led coalition not ended the war earlier than expected.

During the Gulf war, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles with conventional warheads at Israel in an attempt to draw the Jewish state into war and break up the Arab coalition. Following the attack, Israelis had started equipping themselves with gas masks fearing the use of chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein.

Last week, Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai spoke to US Secretary of defence William Cohen on a hotline, the first time since it was installed 10 months ago.

Col Shmuel Gordon, a senior analyst in military doctrine at Jaffee Centre for strategic studies at Tel Aviv university, said the US forces had enhanced their bunker penetration capabilities in the past six years and now had war heads that could penetrate through “almost any bunker.”

The Jerusalem Post said Gordon dismissed reports from Washington that the US weapons could penetrate only three to four metres of concrete.