JERUSALEM - Israel kept up a careful policy of ambiguous silence on Friday over accusations from Damascus that its warplanes violated Syrian airspace in an incident that stoked tensions between the two enemies.
Syria said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes flying over the northeast of the country in the early hours of Thursday and warned that it was weighing its response to the Israeli "aggression".
But the Israeli government and military have stayed silent. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, toasting the Jewish new year with generals on Thursday, kept his lips sealed and government officials have refrained from any comment.
Speculating in the dark, Israeli analysts are divided over whether the flight -- still unconfirmed -- was a tactic of intimidation or a reconnaissance mission -- or whether silence would appease or escalate tensions.
Tzahi Hanegbi, who is close to Olmert and chairman of parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee, went public Friday to say that Israel "does not want to raise tension" and is not courting confrontation with Syria.
But various analysts disagreed.
"If the air force did carry out such a flight, in the middle of the night without visibility... it looks like provocation to show Syria that Israel has not lost its power of deterrence," said military expert Reuven Pedatzur.
The analyst maintained that the formal silence would "only increase tension" and runs the risk of courting an armed escalation that "neither side wants".
"The tension between Israel and Syria climbs to new heights every day. Pay no attention to the soothing statements. Nothing has abated on this front in recent weeks," wrote commentator Ben Caspit in the Maariv newspaper.
"A country that wants to avoid war is meant to go to great lengths on a day like this, in efforts to appease. But Olmert was silent.
"Israel paid highly for not landing a preventive strike before Yom Kippur. Israel desperately needs to restore its power of deterrence," he wrote.
On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, to recover territory lost in the 1967 Middle East war, although they were again defeated.
Israel and Syria remain officially at war. Peace talks last collapsed in 2000 over the status of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967, and each blame each other for tensions in the Middle East.
Syria shelters a number of radical Palestinian groups and is home to Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas who tops Israel's most wanted list and heads a movement branded a terrorist organisation by the West.
Army radio quoted military officials it did not identify as ruling out any armed escalation but warning that Damascus could respond to the reported airspace violation by encouraging "terror attacks" on Israeli targets abroad.
Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told Al-Jazeera television on Thursday that his country's leadership was "giving serious consideration to its response... to this aggression".
Mark Heller, a researcher at the Jaffee Centre attached to Tel Aviv University, suggested that the flight -- if indeed there was a flight -- was "perhaps a routine operation intending to test Syrian air defence systems".
"Israel has every reason to worry about the weapons Syria is acquiring but that doesn't mean the country is intending to attack," he said.
Public and army radio also speculated that it may have been a reconnaissance flight but offered no other details.
Former major general Uzi Dayan said it was enough to know that Israel "is active in a number of places in the Middle East".
"To say more would be speculation and even dangerous in terms of running the risk of fanning the flames," he said -- believing that silence is a way of pouring oil on troubled waters.
Over the past few months, both Israeli and Syrian leaders have said their countries do not want a war but were preparing for any possibility, while each side has accused the other of arming for a conflict.
In June 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over President Bashar al-Assad's palace in northern Syria while he was inside, in an operation confirmed by the military but an action that Damascus condemned as an "act of piracy".
ms/jm/kir
09/07/2007 09:10 GMT