WarSclerotic

No evidence has been found indicating that any of the five rockets that were launched earlier Monday landed in the southern city of Eilat, the city’s police chief Meir Yitzhak-Halevi said, adding that it was likely that all of the rockets had likely landed on Jordanian soil.

Earlier Monday it was reported that a Jordanian man had died after one of the rockets, apparently fired from the Sinai Peninsula, exploded near him in port city of Aqaba.

	Wreckage of cars damaged by a rocket attack is seen at a hotel area in the Jordan’s Red Sea city of Aqaba August 2, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

The man succumbed to his serious wounds a few hours after the incident. Three other Jordanian were wounded, but there were no casualties in Eilat.

A total of five rockets were launched toward Aqaba, situated near the Israeli city of Eilat, just beforer 8 A.M.

	The southern Israeli city of Eilat
	Photo by: Archive

Two of the rockets apparently struck the Red Sea, another exploded in an open area near Eilat, and the other two hit central Aqaba, one of them in front of the city’s Intercontinental Hotel.

Jordanian Communications Minister Nabil Al-Sharif confirmed that a Grad rocket hit a main street in Aqaba and said he was certain that the salvo had not been launched from within Jordanian territory.

Another Jordanian source, when asked where the rocket had been launched from, told Reuters without elaborating: “It came from the west.”

Two of the wounded were taxi drivers and one of their cars was destroyed, said witness Mohammad Shudeifat, who was on his way to work in the area when the blast struck.

Eilat District Port Commander Moshe Cohen said that while it was too early to know where the rocket had been fired from, “it is reasonable to assume that it came from the southern area,” referring to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian security sources, however, were quoted by the state news agency as saying rockets could not have been fired from Sinai.

A sixth rocket was fired hours later, according to Army Radio, and exploded within Sinai territory next to an international peace-keeping force.

The coastal Israeli city was last hit by rockets in April, when two were fired from Sinai. That incident was the first time a rocket has been fired at the resort town in almost five years.

Eilat, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, is a popular resort for Israelis and foreign holiday-makers. It was largely spared the violence faced by other Israeli cities during the Intifada and subsequent years. The city was hit in January 2007 by a suicide bomber, killing three people.

In 2005, rockets were fired at U.S. warships in Aqaba’s port but missed their target and killed a Jordanian soldier on land. A group claiming links to al-Qaida said it was behind the attack.

In 2001, Jordan’s security forces captured Hezbollah activists from Lebanon who planned to fire missiles at Eilat from Aqaba. A year later, an unknown Beirut-based organization said it was planning to bomb several areas in Israel from Jordan, including Eilat, Beit She’an and Tiberias.

The Israel Air Force late Saturday bombed two smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip, after a Katyusha rocket struck Ashkelon on Friday and a Qassam hit the western Negev within just 24 hours.