BICOM

A Grad rocket has landed in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. District police chief Ron Gertner told Israeli radio the rocket had been fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. He added it struck a construction site close to a residential area shortly after midnight local time. No damage or injuries were reported.

The blast took place as thousands of Israelis head to the resort town for the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Rocket attacks from Egyptian soil are infrequent. The last rocket attack against Eilat launched from the Sinai was in 2010, which hit the nearby Jordanian town of Aqaba, killing one person and injuring another four.

Eilat’s Mayor, Meir Yitzhak-Halevy, told the Jerusalem Post that the city would function as normal despite the attack.

A wave of unrest has hit the Sinai Peninsula recently. In particular, the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak has led to increased terrorist activity in Sinai, and greater movement of arms and terrorists crossing from the Gaza Strip into Egypt.

The most recent incident of terrorism in the Eilat area took place in August 2011, when eight people were killed and dozens wounded in a series of attacks on Israeli targets approximately 20 kilometers north of Eilat.