Israel’s police raised the alert level nationwide and the army division deployed around Gaza said it was “ready for every scenario” as the Jewish state started the Passover holiday yesterday.

“Thousands of police have been deployed across the whole country, and particularly in the Jerusalem region,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

No specific attack threats have been made public, but Israeli security is usually tightened during major Jewish holidays.

A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fell in southern Israel yesterday afternoon, but police said it caused no casualties or damage.

Surveillance of synagogues, markets, stations, commercial centres and national parks, which tend to attract throngs of visitors during the Passover holiday, was being stepped up.

Police were also strengthening their deployment inside Jerusalem’s Old City to ensure the protection of crowds of Christian pilgrims in town to celebrate Easter, Mr Rosenfeld said.

Police said yesterday that they had stopped three Jewish right-wing activists carrying a young goat near the Old City walls, which they apparently intended to sacrifice in the vicinity of the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Jews believe it to be the location of the Second Temple, Judaism’s holiest site, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

Today it houses the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and is Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It is a place where religious and political passions are highly flammable, and has been the scene of many clashes between Jews and Muslims.

“Near to the Zion Gate in Jerusalem, police detained three rightist activists, an adult and two minors, in possession of a kid,” a police statement said.

Israeli media named the adult as Noam Federman, a well known religious nationalist and West Bank settler, and said he intended to re-enact the Passover sacrifice as performed in biblical times.

Police said he was released after questioning.

“The two minors and the kid are to be dealt with by the agriculture ministry investigations unit,” the statement said.

The Israeli military announced on Sunday a nine-day closure of the West Bank during the holiday, and the deputy commander of the army division deployed along the Gaza Strip said his troops were on standby.

“We are on very high alert on the Gaza Strip, we are ready for every scenario and if necessary we will respond with force,” Colonel Amir Avivi told Israeli public radio.

Meanwhile yesterday evening Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to US President Barack Obama shortly before the start of the Passover Jewish holiday and ahead of a Washington trip next month.

Mr Netanyahu’s office said that in their telephone conversation, Mr Obama greeted the Israeli premier and the Jewish people on the occasion of the holiday.

The Jewish festival of Passover, which marks the biblical Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, began at sunset yesterday and lasts for a week.

Jews traditionally mark the first evening with a festive meal known as a Seder. Mr Obama said he would also host such a dinner for US Jewish community representatives at the White House later yesterday, the statement said.

“The two discussed diplomatic issues and decided to keep in touch over the next few days,” it added.

Mr Netanyahu is due to address both houses of Congress during his visit to Washington next month.

There is widespread expectation in the Israeli media that he will also meet Mr Obama for talks on how to revive the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, although no announcement of such a meeting has yet been made.

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