JERUSALEM - Israeli forces remained on high alert along the northern border with Syria and Lebanon on Thursday following a reported raid by Israeli warplanes on Syria a week ago, public television said.
"The military is maintaining its state of alert" so it is able to face any eventuality, the channel quoted military sources as saying, but without elaborating.
Another station, the privately owned Channel 2, reported that tensions along the northern frontier had "diminished somewhat."
Israeli officials continued to stick to a complete news blackout on Thursday, despite a US military official in Washington confirming on Tuesday that Israel had launched an air raid on Syria.
According to the American broadcaster CNN, the strike targeted weapons either coming into Syria or moving through Syria from Iran to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Lebanon that Israel fought in a war last year.
The New York Times reported that Israel thinks Syria and Iran are buying nuclear material from North Korea and had carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria to photograph possible nuclear installations.
In a departure from tradition both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak remained tight-lipped and declined to give interviews marking Wednesday evening's start of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.
Syria lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations on Tuesday over what it called the "flagrant violation" of its airspace in the early hours of September 6, when it said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes over the northeast of its territory.
ms/srm/kir
09/13/2007 18:04 GMT