Tel Aviv - Israeli police emergency
lines lit up on Thursday after warplanes roared over the Tel
Aviv coast, dropping anti-missile flares and performing
aerobatics at a time of tension along the border with Syria.
It was just a rehearsal - practice flights are held every
year - for the Israeli Air Force's annual Independence Day
national flypast on April 19, but no prior announcement was
made.
"Many calls were received from worried citizens about noise
from a squadron of planes in the Tel Aviv area," police said in
statement. "We would like to make clear they were training for
the Independence Day aerial display. There's no emergency."
Under clear skies over Tel Aviv's Mediterranean beach, two
F-15 jets manoeuvred through a series of sharp turns, climbs and
dives in what appeared to be a mock dogfight as the sound of
their engines crackled through the streets.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Russia of
imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas
attack, and Israel held top-level security consultations over
concerns it might be a target for Syrian or Iranian retaliation.
Trump said on Thursday that a possible strike against Syria
"could be very soon or not so soon at all".
Despite the tensions, the commander of Israel's armed
forces, Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot, flew to Poland on
Thursday morning to take part in Holocaust Remembrance Day
events.
The Israeli military tweeted a video of him boarding a plane
but did not immediately say when he was scheduled to return. A
source in the delegation told Reuters, however, that Eizenkot
would be back by nightfall.
In Israel, sirens blared for two minutes during the morning
to mark the remembrance day, bringing traffic to a standstill as
motorists and pedestrians stood to honour the six million Jews
killed in the Nazi Holocaust.
Civil defence authorities issued the customary notice
beforehand that in the event of a real emergency, the sirens
would sound in a rising and falling, rather than a constant,
tone.