Israeli health ministry sources said that preliminary test results showed that the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu had reached Israel, local newspaper the Ha' aretz reported Friday.

There is no official confirmation yet.

More than 1,000 turkeys died on Thursday in two communities in the south of the country.

If the test results are confirmed, it will be the first bird flu outbreak in Israel.

Israel has geared up for any such possible outbreak, ordering that all the birds in the affected farms and nearby farms will be destroyed and that a quarantine will be imposed with a radius of 10 kilometers around the farms if the deadly virus is detected.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has already killed over 90 people worldwide since 2003 and led to the destruction of tens of millions of birds.

Experts fear that the disease, currently jumping from birds to humans through close contact, might mutate into a form that can easily pass among humans, leading to a global pandemic.

The disease was detected in neighboring Egypt last month.

Source: Xinhua