As the possibility of an American strike on Syria increases, Israeli requests for gas masks are up 400 percent in the past few days, according to the Israeli postal service which distributes the masks. Israel’s home front command says that only some 40 percent of Israelis have gas masks, but the percentage in northern Israel, which is closest to the Syrian border is much higher, with almost three-quarters of Israelis in northern Israel getting the gas masks.
The Israeli government first distributed gas masks during the Gulf War with Iraq n 1990, when Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel, although none of the missiles carried chemical weapon. Afterwards, it was found that many of those masks would have been ineffective against chemical weapons so they were collected and new ones distributed over the past few years.