Israelis Back on Jobs--With Gas Masks : Routine: Schools remain closed. A curfew remains in effect in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as a precaution against rioting.

Jumpy Israelis who carried their gas masks with them were back at work nationwide today before an evening Scud attack again terrorized the Tel Aviv and Haifa.

“The idea is to resume normal living as much as possible,” said Brig. Gen. Nahman Shai, the military spokesman. “This is not going to be a short war . . . but the longer people stay home near their sealed rooms, it isn’t healthy.”

The disc jockey on Israel radio’s rock music channel said it another way: “Ah routine, routine, how much we’ve missed you.”

In the Tel Aviv and Haifa areas, where the missiles struck in attacks Friday and Saturday, business returned to normal, a day after the rest of the country was ordered back to work.

On Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street, coffee shops favored for long conversations reopened, but customers sipped espresso behind windows crisscrossed with strips of tape to prevent shattering from explosions.

Shops and department stores also opened, and many shoppers carried gas masks with them at the urging of the government.

Schools remained closed nationwide for a fifth day for fear of keeping large numbers of children and teen-agers in a single area.

There are concerns that groups of children would be hard to handle during an attack because of anxieties and that many could die if a school is struck or near a hit.

Also, parents prefer to keep children with the family in times of such great stress and fear.

Curfews imposed when the war began Thursday were lifted in Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem. They remained in force for the 1.7 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as a precaution against rioting.

The restrictions are lifted two to three hours daily so Palestinians can stock up on food. In Gaza, only women were allowed out, but their shopping trips were often futile--male storekeepers were confined to their homes.

Gas masks were slowly being handed out to Arabs in West Bank towns bordering Israeli cities after a Supreme Court ruling that Israel, as the occupying power, had the obligation to give the masks to all residents of the territories.