JERUSALEM: Israeli units deployed along the southern border with Egypt were ordered on "high alert" late on Friday for fear of a "terrorist attack," an army spokeswoman said.
The alert came as Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas formally asked the United Nations to admit Palestine as a member state, making history in his people’s long quest for statehood.
"We have boosted the state of alert following information about a terrorist attack," Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich said.
Leibovich referred to reports that Palestinian armed groups operating in the Gaza Strip, including the armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas, were planning an attack against Israel via Egyptian territory.
"Reinforcements have been deployed and surveillance of the border has been strengthened," she added.
Shortly after Abbas made his statehood bid at the United Nations, Hamas dismissed it as a step with "no substance."
Relations between Egypt — the first Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in 1979 — and Israel have been particularly tense since Aug. 18, when Israeli troops killed six Egyptian policemen as they chased militants along the border.
That incident followed a series of Negev desert ambushes that killed eight Israelis.
At the time, outraged Egyptians staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. Egypt has asked Israel for an official apology and demanded a probe into the deaths.
Israel accused Gaza’s Popular Resistance Committees of being behind the ambushes, but the group denied it was responsible.
