A Jordanian man died on Monday after a rocket apparently fired from the Sinai Peninsula exploded near him in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.
A total of five rockets were launched toward Aqaba and the Israeli city of Eilat, just beforer 8 A.M. 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.
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.