Drill simulates airplane attack on office building in Tel Aviv

GIVATAIM, Israel -- Realistic-looking smoke gushed from the fifth floor of a 30-story office building in a Tel Aviv suburb Tuesday in a drill simulating the Sept. 11 attack in New York.

Hundreds of firefighters, police officers and paramedics took part in the exercise, scaled down to Israeli proportions. Some were putting to use what they learned in training exercises with New York City firefighters.

It wasn't just theory. Aside from the attack on the World Trade Center, Israel says there were two attempts in the last year to attack Israeli high-rise office buildings.

In the drill scenario, a small plane slams into the fifth floor of the Vered Tower, leaving many people injured on two floors. For the exercise, white smoke shot out with a hiss from a pipe in one of the windows. Five minutes later, as rescue crews arrived, a simulated car bomb exploded in the building's underground parking lot.

, causing what were supposed to be hazardous materials to spill in a nearby storage area.

A crowd of onlookers and journalists jumped as the phony explosive went off with a loud boom.

Standing on the sidewalk, ninth-grader Rotem Eliahu watched as rescuers rode fire ladders to pull people from windows and wondered what would happen if the plane struck the building's top floors, where ladders can't reach.

"It's a bit unrealistic," she said.

Gil Shua, 18, who came over from a nearby cafe when he heard the "explosion," wondered if the drill would give attackers the idea to strike the tower.

Israeli officials have said two attempts were made in the last year to bomb Tel Aviv's Azrieli towers, just down the street. The twin 50- and 46-story towers are Israel's second and third tallest buildings.

During Tuesday's drill, fire trucks sped to the scene with sirens blaring, journalists and TV news crews took pictures and police officers roped off the scene and shouted for people to move back.

After the hourlong drill, sweating firefighters, some of them wearing patches of the New York City Fire Department, took off heavy gear and stood for a moment of silence to honor the firefighters who died in the attack on the World Trade Center.