Rockets 'hit Israeli resort city of Eilat'

Al Jazeera English

Two rockets fired from Egypt's Sinai peninsula has struck Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat, causing no casualties or damage, the Israeli military has said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said on Wednesday that two rockets were launched from the Sinai and that both hit open areas.

Local television showed the casing of the one of the rockets lying in sand at a construction site in the resort city.

Israel deployed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in Eilat about two weeks ago, a period coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday when the city at the tip of Gulf of Aqaba is packed with vacationers.

But on Wednesday, the system did not intercept the incoming missiles "for operational reasons", the spokeswoman said, without elaborating.

Meir Yitzhak Halevy, the city mayor, told Israeli Army Radio that the rockets, apparently fired from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, struck open areas.

Egypt's military said it was still investigating whether two rockets that exploded in the Israeli Red Sea resort had come from the Sinai peninsula.

"We are still investigating to see if they were delivered from Egyptian territories but nothing is confirmed yet," a senior military official told AFP.

Rockets were last fired at Eilat in November last year.

Army Radio reported that a rocket had also hit the nearby Jordanian city of Aqaba, but a spokesman for the Jordanian Civil Defence denied the suggestion.