JERUSALEM - Israel said tests showed the avian flu virus that infected poultry in the south of the country is the lethal H5N1 strain.

Israel began culling flocks of turkeys and chickens in infected coops over the weekend after thousands of birds died at three farms.

Officials said on Friday the avian flu had killed them but they were awaiting the results of laboratory tests to determine its strain.

The Agriculture Ministry, in a posting on its Web site late on Sunday, said the tests showed that H5N1, a strain that has spread across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia and killed at least 98 people worldwide since 2003, had reached Israel.

It said further culling would be carried out at farms within a 3-km (2-mile) radius of the infected coops, the Agriculture Ministry said.

"The situation is under control," the ministry said in its update on the Internet, urging Israelis to continue to eat "properly cooked" poultry and eggs.

Although hard to catch, people can contract bird flu by coming into contact with infected birds. Scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that could pass easily between humans, triggering a pandemic in which millions could die.

Four farm workers in Israel feared to have caught the virus had not been infected, the Health Ministry said.

Agriculture Ministry officials said workers were killing turkey and chickens in the infected areas by poisoning their drinking water and burying their carcasses in pits.