View from Israel With US troops at the gates of Baghdad, the Israeli army has stepped up its level of alertness in the event that a back-to-the-wall Saddam Hussein opts to launch missiles at the Jewish state in a final, desperate fling before his regime disintegrates, Peter Hirschberg, in Jerusalem
While the military still believes it unlikely such a scenario will materialise, and Coalition troops have been intensively combing western Iraq from where 39 Scuds were launched at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War, the fear is that the Iraqi leader might still have the capability to launch missiles at Israel from mobile launchers transported on camouflaged trucks.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, several thousand Palestinians again took to the streets following Friday prayers yesterday in support of Iraq.
In Gaza City, some 2,000 supporters of the militant Hamas movement marched with Iraqi and Palestinian flags.
They also carried two coffins - one representing the UN Security Council, the other the Arab League - and chanted, "Bush listen very well, the Islam fighters will send you to hell."
Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, told the crowd that, "God willing, Baghdad will be the graveyard of the invaders."
In the West Bank city of Tul Karm, Israeli troops concluded a sweep for militants that began Wednesday, and which included the nearby refugee camp of the same name, by arresting the commander of the militant Islamic Jihad in the city, Anwar Aliyan.