JERUSALEM, Jan 2: Israel is to host an annual joint search and rescue exercise with the Turkish and the United States navies off its Mediterranean coast in the middle of the month, officials said Sunday.

"The objective of this exercise is to practice coordinated emergency search and rescue procedures in order to save lives in times of distress at sea," a spokesman for the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said in a statement.

"By familiarizing themselves with each others capabilities and working together, elements of the three naval forces which regularly operate in the Mediterranean Sea will be able to provide humanitarian aid and more effective responses to actual maritime emergencies," it added.

It is the seventh such joint exercise between Israel and two of her most important allies. Turkey, a strictly secular country with a Muslim majority population, infuriated Arab nations in 1996 when it struck a military cooperation accord with the Jewish state. -AFP