A rocket fired from the Egyptian Sinai peninsula blew up early Thursday in the Israeli resort town of Eilat (southern Israel), causing no casualties. "The Grad rocket fired from Egypt exploded in the city, but caused no casualties or damage" , police official Ron Getner told Army radio. He said the device exploded several hundred meters of houses in a site under construction.
Getner said the police were on "high alert "while stressing that no new instructions had been given to the public or visitors to Eilat.
"Residents of Eilat reported three explosions during the night, but for now we have found a single rocket" , police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
This rocket from Sinai is the first since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak's regime last year, added Army radio.
The explosion occurred when a large number of Israeli tourists are in Eilat, a resort town on the Red Sea, on the occasion of the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins Friday night. The feast is followed by a week long holiday.
The mayor of Eilat, Meir Yitzhak Halevy, told public radio that he was "under discussion" with the authorities to deploy a battery of rocket interceptor system from the type "Iron Dome".
He also said that "many actions are carried out with the Egyptian authorities to maintain calm in the region," without giving further details.
Halevy said that no cancellation of hotel reservation had been recorded so far.
