Baz Ratner / Reuters file

Mount Hermon is seen in the background as Israeli soldiers travel on mobile artillery units after an exercise on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on February 14. Israel is worried that the Golan, which it captured from Syria in 1967, will become a springboard for attacks targeting Israelis by jihadists who are taking part in the armed struggle against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

News analysis

TEL AVIV – About 2,000 Israeli army reservists were woken in the middle of the night this week and instructed by recorded announcement to report immediately to the northern border with Syria. They raced there, armed for war, only to discover it was a drill – Israel's largest in the north for years.

Every day, Israeli military leaders say, is a day in which peace could turn to war, especially in the north. Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned last month that Israel's border with Syria, its most stable border since the two countries signed their disengagement agreement 40 years ago, could explode at any moment.

"We are commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, and the years of quiet and stability are disappearing," he said at meeting at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies think tank, choosing his words carefully. "Instability (on the Golan Heights) is increasing."

Israel conquered the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, a move not recognized by the international community which considers it to be occupied territory. Today, 44,000 people live on the Golan Heights and a United Nations force is stationed in a buffer zone between Israel and Syria. 

Israel has warned it will do whatever is necessary to prevent the Syrian government's large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons from falling into the hands of militants, believing that one day they may be used against Israel. It would be better, Israeli leaders believe, to fight in Syria against Islamists armed with non-conventional weapons than wait for them to attack Israel with them.

According to army sources quoted in the Maariv newspaper, Israel is sending fresh troops to man forward bases that have not been used for years because it was so quiet. The roads to the bases will also be paved and improved, the paper said.

Bullets and rockets have been fired from Syria into Israel at least a dozen times this year. Most are believed to be errant fire from fighting on the other side of the border, but the army says it sometimes comes from bunkers abandoned by the Syrian army, which pulled out to defend President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus.

That vacuum along the border has been filled by Islamist militias – especially the al-Nusra front which says it is allied with al Qaeda – who repeatedly say their goal after toppling Assad is to use his territory as a launch-pad for attacks against Israel.

Israel has a history of short, sharp, specific attacks when its interests are threatened. In September 2007, Israel destroyed Syria's al-Kibar nuclear facility with a single devastating air attack. Earlier this year, Israel destroyed a truck convoy allegedly transporting strategic weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

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A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

But the prospect of Israeli soldiers operating on the ground in Syria, even if to protect Israel's interests, is at the very bottom of Israel's agenda, according to military analysts and politicians alike.

From a high point overlooking Israel's border near the Syrian town of Quneitra, abandoned and heavily damaged during the 1973 war, there is little sign of tension for now. The United Nations base for 1,000 international peacekeepers whose job is to patrol the buffer zone between Israel and Syria, showed no sign of activity during a two-hour visit this week. Not one vehicle entered or left the base.

It sits on the Israeli side of a new hi-tech razor fence that Israel built along its 50-mile border with Syria to keep the Syrian conflict from spilling into Israel. It is designed to keep out Syrians seeking refuge, militiamen seeking to attack Israeli targets, and above all, to keep Israel from intervening in Syria's civil war.

But the longer the bloody conflict lasts, Israeli military analysts warn, the more likely Israel will be dragged in.

Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List", "Breaking News" and "Walking Israel."

Related stories:

• Israel: Syria has used chemical weapons, victims seen 'foaming from the mouth'
• Israel becomes a fortress nation as it walls itself off from the Arab Spring
• Full Israel coverage on NBCNews.com

This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 5:09 AM EDT

Hatem Moussa / AP

Relatives of a man killed by an Israeli airstrike mourn during his funeral Tuesday in the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City. Israel said the man, Hithem Masshal, was a "key terror figure."

TEL AVIV, Israel -- An Israeli air strike killed a "key terror figure" responsible for firing rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, a Palestinian stabbed to death an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank, police said.

It was the first time an Israeli had been killed by a Palestinian in the West Bank since 2011, according to Reuters.  

The Israeli strike on Gaza, which is ruled by Islamist militant group Hamas, appeared to be the first such attack since a ceasefire ended an eight-day war in November.

It came just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a military response to rocket fire into Israel from the strip.

"The terrorist that was targeted is Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal, 24 years old, a resident of Shati Refugee Camp," the IDF said in a statement.  

"Mashhal acted in different Jihad Salafi terror organizations and over the past few years has been a key terror figure, specializing in weapons and working with all of the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip," it added.

Masshal made, modified and traded in ammunition, specializing in rockets and explosive devices, according to the IDF. 

A spokesman for Itzhar settlement named the slain man as Eviatar Borovsky, a 31-year-old father of five. Border policemen shot and wounded Borovsky's attacker.

The violence ended a period of relative calm in the region, and came after Arab states appeared to soften their stance on Israel's borders at a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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The Arab League is open to the possibility of "mutually agreed" land swaps to help find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Qatar’s prime minister said on Monday.

The statement by Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani came after meetings between Arab League representatives and Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington. Vice President Joe Biden also sat in on some of the discussions.

A major sticking point remains, however, in that the Qatari prime minister also said any new borders drawn should be based on the ones that existed in June 1967, before Israel’s Six-Day War claimed more land.

“The Arab League delegation affirmed the agreement should be based on the two-state solution on the basis of the fourth of June 1967 lines, with the [possibility] of comparable and mutually agreed minor swap of land," he said.

The borders have been a point of contention ever since, and Israel has repeatedly rejected the idea of giving up seized land.

But Monday’s language appeared more conciliatory with mentions of any land swaps being agreed upon and the prime minister’s call for “a joint justice and peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

Kerry described the meetings as “very positive, very constructive discussions … with positive results.”

The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt were present, as were representatives of Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. Hamad serves as both prime minster and foreign minister of Qatar.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking on Israel’s Army Radio, applauded Hamad’s comments, Reuters reported.

“The news is very positive,” the service quoted Livni as saying. “In the tumultuous world around … it could allow the Palestinians to enter the room and make the needed compromises, and it sends a message to the Israeli public that this is not just about us and the Palestinians.”

Kerry and the delegates also discussed Syria on Monday with United Nations peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

A State Department official said they discussed “assistance to the Syria opposition, including our support to the SMC [Supreme Military Council], and the ongoing efforts to help consolidate moderate elements of the opposition.”

Speaking on behalf of the Arab League, Hamad said, “I think all of us” support the Syrian opposition’s April 20 declaration in Istanbul, which said the rebels would work toward a a free and democratic Syria with “no room for sectarianism or discrimination on ethnic, religious, linguistic or any other grounds.”

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President Obama said Friday that the potential use of chemical weapons by the ruling regime of Syria against its people “adds increased urgency” to international concern about the regime.

Speaking to reporters during an Oval Office meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, Obama noted that reports of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government were preliminary. That information, he said, “does not tell us when they were used, how they were used.”

Still, the president said: “Obviously, horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law. And that is going to be a game-changer.”

On Tuesday, the Israeli military published intelligence findings that President Bashar Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons repeatedly in recent months. Part of Israel’s concern, and Obama’s, is that those weapons could fall into terrorist hands.

Two days later, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that the U.S. believes “with some degree of varying confidence” that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, specifically the nerve agent sarin, against its people.

A letter from the White House to Congress said the assessment was based on “physiological samples” but called for a United Nations probe to corroborate it and nail down when and how they were used.

The American response is shadowed by the legacy of flawed intelligence reports of weapons of mass destruction that led to the invasion of Iraq.

The president spoke after the deputy foreign minister of Israel said world powers may now conclude there was “no avoiding” action to take control of the Assad regime’s chemical stockpile.

British Prime Minister David Cameron also said there was limited but growing evidence that the Syrian regime had used chemical agents.

Echoing the administration’s caution, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that “every option is on the table” but stressed that “we want to do everything we can to avoid putting boots on the ground.”

Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., said on Thursday that the Obama administration should consider a military approach but not commit American troops. He suggested providing weapons to trusted parts of the Syrian resistance.

The uprising against Assad began in March 2011, and an estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the violence that has followed.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

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A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

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This story was originally published on Fri Apr 26, 2013 8:02 AM EDT

TEL AVIV, Israel - A helicopter carrying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to land in the north of the country after an unmanned drone was spotted trying to infiltrate Israel's airspace.

The prime minister's helicopter took off after the drone was shot down, according reports in Haaretz and Ynetnews. 

"The (unmanned aerial vehicle) was tracked by IDF ground and aerial surveillance for the duration of its flight path as it attempted to approach Israel's coast," the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, said in a statement.  "Israel Air Force aircraft intercepted the UAV and successfully downed the target five nautical miles off the coast of the northern Israeli city of Haifa."

The IDF declined to confirm Israeli media reports that Netanyahu's helicopter landed, but the prime minister did issue a statement shortly after news of the incident was released.

"I view with utmost gravity this attempt to violate our border. We will continue to do everything necessary to safeguard the security of Israel's citizens," the prime minister said in a statement. 

The incident was the second time in seven months that a drone had been intercepted in Israeli airspace, the IDF said. It did not say where the drone originated, but during the 2006 Israeli war with Lebanon, Israeli jets intercepted two drones launched by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant organization. 

"UAVs pose a serious threat to the State of Israel's security. The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to violate Israel's sovereignty or harm its security," the IDF statement added. 

The IDF said it was searching the area over which the drone was shot down on Thursday evening.

Related:

Israel: Syria has used chemical weapons, victims seen 'foaming from the mouth'

Happy birthday, Israel! Now have some tofu

Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons in the country’s civil war, the Israeli military’s top intelligence analyst said on Tuesday, citing photographic evidence of people "foaming from the mouth."

If the claim by Brigadier-General Itai Brun is confirmed, it would mean Syria’s President Bashar Assad has crossed what the State Department has previously described as a red line that would trigger some form of U.S. response. President Barack Obama also warned Assad using chemical weapons would be a "tragic mistake" that would have "consequences."

Brun told a conference at the Institute of National Security in Tel Aviv that photographs of victims showing foam coming out of their mouths and contracted pupils were signs that a deadly gas had been used.

"One of the main characteristics of the recent events in Syria is the increasing use of ground-to-ground missiles, rockets and chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. There is a wide-range usage of missile, rockets and more by the Syrian weapons array," he said, according to a translated transcript of his remarks provided by the Israel Defense Forces.

"According to our professional assessment, the regime has used deadly chemical weapons against armed rebels on a number of occasions in the past few months," he said.

"For instance, on March 19, 2013, victims suffered from shrunken pupils, foaming from the mouth, and other symptoms which indicate the use of deadly chemical weapons. The type of chemical weapons was likely sarin, as well as neutralizing and non-lethal chemical weapons," he added.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, sarin, a nerve agent, causes symptoms including loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, and respiratory failure that can be fatal.

George Ourfalian / Reuters file

Animal carcasses lie on the ground after what residents, Syrian rebels and Assad's regime all said was a chemical weapon attack in Khan al-Assal near the northern city of Aleppo, on March 23.

In March, Assad's regime and the rebels blamed each other for what both said was a chemical-weapon attack in Aleppo.

Responding to Brun’s comments, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a written statement that the United States “continues to assess reports of chemical weapons use in Syria.”

“The use of such weapons would be entirely unacceptable. We reiterate in the strongest possible terms the obligations of the Syrian regime to safeguard its chemical weapons stockpiles, and not to use or transfer such weapons to terrorist groups like Hezbollah,” he added.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces would be a "game changer" and the United States and Israel "have options for all contingencies," Reuters reported.

Hagel met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the news service said, a day after flying in an Israeli military helicopter over the occupied Golan Heights on the edge of the fighting in Syria that has entered its third year.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

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A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

"This is a difficult and dangerous time, this is a time when friends and allies must remain close, closer than ever," Hagel, in remarks to reporters before his talks with Netanyahu, said about the United States and Israel.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Belgium for a NATO meeting on Tuesday, that he did not have information that confirmed that the Syrians had used chemical weapons.

Earlier he said the alliance needed to consider its role in the crisis, Reuters reported. "We should also carefully and collectively consider how NATO is prepared to respond to protect its members from a Syrian threat, including any potential chemical weapons threat," he added.

Kerry said that the planning the alliance had already done was appropriate. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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TEL AVIV – American and Israeli defense officials welcomed a new arms sale agreement on Monday as a major step toward increasing Israel’s military strength, but Israeli officials said it still left them without the weapons they would need if they decided to attack Iran’s deepest and best-protected nuclear sites.

Jim Watson / AFP-Getty Images

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon speak during a helicopter tour above the Golan Heights on April 22, 2013. Hagel met his counterpart to put the finishing touches on a major arms deal and for talks on Syria's civil war and the Iranian nuclear threat.

The mixed message came as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, reaffirmed their commitment to stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, while sidestepping a continuing disagreement between the two countries about how close to allow Iran to get toward such a goal.

In public, Mr. Hagel again said that Israel had the right to decide by itself how to defend the country, and both officials said military action should be a last resort. But a close adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that “the fundamental difference of views on how much risk we can take with Iran is re-emerging.”

The new weapons sale package includes aircraft for midair refueling and missiles that can cripple an adversary’s air defense system. Both would be critical for Israel if it were to decide on a unilateral attack on Iran.

But what the Israelis wanted most was a weapons system that is missing from the package: a giant bunker-busting bomb designed to penetrate earth and reinforced concrete to destroy deeply buried sites. According to both American and Israeli analysts, it is the only weapon that would have a chance of destroying the Iranian nuclear fuel enrichment center at Fordow, which is buried more than 200 feet under a mountain outside the holy city of Qum.

The weapon, called a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, weighs about 30,000 pounds — so much that Israel does not have any aircraft capable of carrying it. To do so, they would need a B-2 bomber, the stealth aircraft that the United States flew nonstop recently from Missouri to the Korean Peninsula to underscore to North Korea that it could reach their nuclear sites.

The Obama administration has been reluctant to even discuss selling such capability to the Israelis.

Iran has consistently denied that it wants nuclear weapons and has called its uranium enrichment activities peaceful.

The Fordow site has become an increasing source of concern to the Israelis. When they referred last year to Iran entering a “zone of immunity,” Israeli officials said the phrase referred to the moment when the facility would be complete, and immune from attack by Israeli forces. All the centrifuges that enrich uranium at the site have since been installed, but only about a quarter of them are now operating.

Israel has asked the United States for weapons like the Massive Ordnance Penetrator in the past and has been turned down. American officials declined to say whether the yearlong negotiations with Israel that resulted in the new arms package had included a discussion of the new bomb.

Instead, they pointed to a decision by President Obama to send advanced refueling tanker planes to Israel that would make it possible for the country’s fighter aircraft to reach as far as Iran. A similar refueling capability was turned down during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

The debate is about more than just equipment. Israel’s position has been that Iran cannot be allowed to build up too large a stockpile of medium-enriched uranium that could allow it to then race for a bomb. When Mr. Netanyahu addressed the United Nations in New York last September, he drew a red line across a cartoon picture of a bomb, which aides later said indicated that Iran would not be allowed to amass enough medium-enriched uranium to get enough fuel to make a single weapon.

But most of Iran’s production of that uranium is occurring inside the mountain at Fordow. So far, Iran has stayed just below Mr. Netanyahu’s red line, converting some of the fuel to a metallic form that can be used in a nuclear reactor – but that would take a bit more time to convert back to bomb fuel. To the United States, this has offered up more time for a diplomatic solution. To many Israeli officials, it is a ploy, designed to buy time as Iran installs a new generation of centrifuges that could speed its production.

“It’s all about timetables,” said Dore Gold, the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s inner circle of strategists. “If you say the goal is to halt Iran in the enrichment phase, you don’t have much time. If you are waiting for Iran to weaponize” — the position the Obama administration has taken – “maybe you can give it another year or more.”

Mr. Yaalon suggested that there was still time. “There are other tools to be used and to be exhausted, whether it is diplomacy, economic sanctions,” Mr. Yaalon said.

He avoided mentioning another element of the strategy: sabotage of the Iranian program, which has included cyberattacks on enrichment facilities and the assassination of Iranian scientists. He urged support for Iranians who oppose the current government in Tehran, especially in advance of a presidential election scheduled for June.

But without “a credible military option,” Mr. Yaalon warned, “there is no chance” that the Iranian government would curtail its nuclear ambitions.

During a news conference with Mr. Yaalon at the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Mr. Hagel pledged that the United States would sustain its commitment to assuring Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” and he was emphatic in discussing Iran.

“Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Hagel said. “Period.”

That was far more definitive than anything he said in his confirmation hearing. There he talked about a strategy of containing Iran – a strategy that seemed at odds with Mr. Obama’s stated position — before correcting himself for the record to align with the administration’s position.

The United States has promised Israel $3.1 billion in military financial assistance in this fiscal year, the highest amount ever. Mr. Hagel cited the $460 million the United States has already given to Israel for its missile-defense systems and noted the $220 million request for the next fiscal year.

After his meetings in Tel Aviv, Mr. Hagel toured northern Israel by helicopter, crossing into the Golan Heights occupied by Israeli forces. The flight took him within a couple miles of the Syrian side of their disputed border and about 30 miles from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

On Monday evening, Amos Yadlin, the former head of military intelligence in Israel, told the annual conference of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, that while any Israeli attack would only delay Iran’s program, “this delay could be important because we may have a regime change.”

Mr. Yadlin, now the executive director of the institute, described the tactical differences between the United States and Israel on dealing with Iran as a “time gap.”

“Israel has defined what the trigger is, what the red line is,” he said. Iran, he concluded, “is already there.”

This story, "No Bunker-Buster Bomb in Israel’s U.S. Arms Deal," first appeared in The New York Times.

Ammar Awad / Reuters

Racers reach the finish line of the first Palestinian marathon in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Sunday.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Jesus' traditional birthplace has long been linked to tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. On Sunday, around 650 athletes took a step towards transforming Bethlehem's modern image by running in the first official Palestinian marathon.

“It’s a strange site to see people run in the West Bank,” said runner Dina Khuri, 21, from Beit Sahour.  “Usually when people run here it has to do with violence, but this time it’s for fun."

Courtesy Dina Khouri

Dina Khouri, left, took part in an historic marathon in the West Bank on Sunday.

Security was tight in the wake of the Boston attacks that killed three and injured more than 170 on Monday. Before the event, organizers said they were "deeply saddened by the news from Boston."

For George Zeidan from Jerusalem, the marathon was not only about fitness.

"Sports (are) my inspiration and my way of identifying myself," he wrote in a blog posted on the marathon website before the race. "I am running for the freedom of Palestine and my people.  I am running to inform everybody that we Palestinians are just like everyone else, we run, dance, sing, play, jump, and have fun, not only that but we are also good at it."

The race started and finished at the Church of the Nativity, thought to be the oldest continuously operating Christian church, and took runners in four loops around Bethlehem. Competitors ran through the Al Ayda and Dheisheh camps, which house 17,700 Palestinian refugees.

The participants from 28 countries passed the barrier separating the West Bank and Israel, which Israelis call the separation wall and Palestinians refer to as the apartheid wall.  The turn-around point was an Israeli Army checkpoint on the road leading to Jerusalem.   

Palestinians Abed El Naser Awajneh and Christine Gebler won the men and women's races, respectively, according to organizers.  

Organizer Signe Fischer said that the main message behind holding the race was to emphasize the importance of freedom of movement. 

“The situation here is of stalemate and this marathon is a positive message for people to do something to change things," she said.

While the United Nations organized a marathon in the Hamas-controlled enclave of Gaza in May, 2011, Sunday's race was the first Palestinian marathon. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority gained non-member state status for Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in November, 2012.  

Alongside growing tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, who have been struggling for years to establish an independent state, have come growing restrictions on their ability to travel into Israel and Gaza. 

Earlier in the week Israelis refused to allow some 20 runners from Gaza to travel to the race. Gaza residents can only go to the West Bank for "exceptional humanitarian reasons with an emphasis on urgent medical cases," Israeli officials were quoted with saying. 

This was likely a big blow to Gaza resident Nader Al-Masri who represented Palestine in the 5,000-meter race at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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TEL AVIV – Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat was hit by two rockets fired from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula Wednesday, but there were was no sign of damage or injury.

Hardline Islamic militant group Magles Shoura al-Mujahddin claimed responsibility in a statement on its website, Reuters reported.

Noa Eliyah / AFP/Getty Images

Israeli policemen inspect the site of a rocket explosion in Eilat, Wednesday.

The statement said the attack was in retaliation for what it described as the Israeli army's attack on protesters demonstrating over the death of a Palestinian prisoner.

Local television showed the casing of the one of the rockets lying in sand at a construction site in the resort city, Al Jazeera reported.

Israel’s military said the rockets caused neither damage nor injury.

The peninsula was demilitarized during the rule of dictator Hosni Mubarak, but since he was swept from power in the 2011 Arab Spring, Islamic militants have begun activities in the region.

Reuters added:

Ran Shauli / AP

The scene of a rocket attack in Eilat, Israel, Wednesday.

Israel deployed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in Eilat some two weeks ago, a period coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday when the city at the tip of Gulf of Aqaba is packed with vacationers.

But on Wednesday, the system did not intercept the incoming missiles ``for operational reasons'', a military spokeswoman said, without elaborating.

Egypt's military said it was still investigating whether the rockets had come from Egypt.

"We are still investigating to see if they were delivered from Egyptian territories but nothing is confirmed yet," a senior military official told agency AFP.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Paul Goldman / NBC News

Nadav Kataei grills vegetables during a massive vegan barbecue at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, on Tuesday. Israeli Independence Day has been nicknamed "Hag Hamangal" -- meaning the "holiday of the barbecue" -- and thousands of families traditionally flock to any free patch of greenery, set up their grills and load them up with meat.

TEL AVIV -- Israel’s 8 million citizens marked the country’s 65^th birthday on Tuesday. One group, however, wouldn't be celebrating Independence Day: the animals.

On the Israeli holiday's menu there is meat. Lots of meat.

But this year, not everyone was opting for the critters. Omri Paz is a 30-year-old vegan from Tel Aviv who heads Vegan Future, a nonprofit organization. Paz decided it was time to also take part in the national celebrations, not by grilling meat but by grilling tofu and vegetables.

For the past decade, Independence Day here has been nicknamed “Hag Hamangal,” meaning the "holiday of the barbecue." Thousands of families flock to any free patch of greenery, set up their grills and load them with meat.

The only exercise in sight is the famous ritual of “lenafnet,” meaning holding a plastic plate over the fire and moving it backward and forward to keep the charcoal burning.

Paul Goldman / NBC News

Omri Paz grills at the vegan barbecue, which also included a lecture on cruelty against cattle.

Paz’s goal is to raise awareness of the benefits of not consuming meat. And what better way than conduct a massive vegan barbecue at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, the Holy Grail of Independence Day celebration sites?

A huge cloud of smoke rose from the park and the smell of grilled meat was everywhere. Families set up tents and kids ran around while their parents stood over their grills, checking the meat.

Paz’s alternative barbecue took place in the middle of the park, partitioned by the Israeli flag, balloons and posters of a woman hugging animals. “Four-hundred people showed up, and I’m expecting that next year there will be 2,000,” said Paz, who estimates that 2 percent of Israelis are vegan.

Tal Gilboa, 28, bought a ticket and looked happy assembling his veggie hamburger. “The feeling is great,” Gilboa said. “In the past years, I would sit alone at home and now I feel so happy.”

For 28-year-old Stav Levi, the celebrations had traditionally been a nightmare. Thinking about so many animals being killed for Independence Day barbecues was heartbreaking. And then there was the feeling of being left out. “Now I don’t feel different anymore,” Levi said. “This event makes us part of the mainstream.”

In one corner of the event, a lecture was given on cruelty toward cattle. Recycling bins were everywhere, and everyone used forks and knives that biodegrade after two months.

Nadav Kataei came to volunteer and serve grilled vegetables. “It’s a great feeling to serve healthy food,” Katei said. “Now we all feel part of the celebrations. We’re not different anymore.”

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Full Israel coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:22 PM EDT

Ariel Schalit / AP

Israeli shop owners play backgammon in the Betzalel market in central Tel Aviv on Friday. A Bloomberg survey this week said the Israeli shekel was the strongest of 31 major currencies tracked over the last six months.

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Boosted by newly discovered natural resources, Israel is surging ahead economically – a success that is pushing the issue of the country's $3 billion in annual aid from the United States onto the agenda.

The country made its first intervention in the foreign currency market in almost two years Tuesday, buying $100 million to peg back the growing strength of its shekel.

A Bloomberg survey this week said the shekel was the strongest of 31 major currencies tracked over the last six months.

Last week, Israel passed another milestone, a potential gamechanger for its economy. Gas began to flow from gas fields off the coast. By 2015 Israel is expected to be fully energy independent, and may be a net exporter.

And there’s more good news: In this water-challenged region, Israel is well on the way to water independence. Its water desalination industry supplies up to 40 percent of the country’s demand for water, and another 40 percent comes from recycled water from domestic and commercial consumption. Israel reuses its water two to three times.

The boom may give a louder voice to calls for a reduction to the $3 billion worth of financial assistance Israel receives from the U.S. each year – especially in the Washington, where budget battles continue.

U.S. campaign groups such as Stop The Blank Check and the Council for the National Interest have long campaigned for the aid program to end, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul recently joined the debate by saying the U.S. could no longer afford to keep borrowing money and then handing it out to others.

"It will be harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process," Paul told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an Israeli think tank, in January.

'A political football'
That view is echoed by some in Israel, such as Naftali Bennett, a software tycoon and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home political party, who during the recent election campaign said the country needed to free itself from U.S. assistance.

“Our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago. Israel is much stronger, much wealthier, and we need to be independent,” he said.

Michael Koplow, program director of the Israel Institute, a Washington think tank, said: “Foreign aid is always a political football – even more so when it comes to Israel. There is no doubt American attention is focused on its own finances.”

However, he noted that 74 percent of the U.S. aid, which is meant for military and defense equipment, has to be spent with U.S. companies.

“Given that Israel is a reliable military spender, you would have to think the defense lobby is going to make sure this aid continues,” Koplow said.

Even those hostile to the aid think it unlikely that Israel’s prosperity will prompt a change.

“The money doesn’t help alleviate poverty in Israel now, so there is no reason why lack of poverty there would cause it to end,” said Robert Naiman, director of Just Foreign Policy.

Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the U.K.’s Chatham House think tank, said: “It would be a matter of national pride to be economically successful and independent, but providing financial support also gives some leverage with Israel.”

And Israel still has economic problems. Unemployment is relatively low at 6.3 per cent, but the gap between rich and poor is one of the highest of all developed countries, according to the OECD.

“I don’t think a natural gas boom is going to do much to change that,” observed Koplow.

That disparity swept Yair Lapid, an inexperienced but popular new politician, into the finance ministry earlier this year as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition. Most of his support came from the disillusioned middle class whose summer of protests in 2011 changed the country’s priorities from political to social issues.

Now Lapid, 49, has to make good on his election challenge, “Where’s the Money?”

Newspapers on Wednesday reported that Lapid had clashed with officials in his department who proposed increases to tuition fees for university students. Lapid responded on his Facebook page that “if students have to pay more I’ll go home and demonstrate against myself.”

And as the government searches for budgets to cut and taxes to raise, newspapers are full of reports that Israel’s richest man, Idan Ofer, has decided to relocate to London in order to avoid paying more taxes – a motive his associates deny.

He has become a juicy target for critics who have long claimed that the country’s handful of tycoons have been milking the country dry, leaving the poor to foot the bill.

The gap between rich and poor, and how strange this is for Israelis brought up on the kibbutz ethos of “we’re all equal,” was well illustrated by the proverbial taxi driver who told a reporter, “Israel has changed. We all used to wear sandals. If you were rich, you wore better sandals.” 

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

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