According to a weekend report in The Jerusalem Post, two divers made the find during a night dive off Eilat’s coral beach last Friday. The area was immediately closed off by the army.
The day before, according to The Jordan Times, one rocket hit a warehouse in Aqaba’s industrial area and another landed in Jordanian territorial water. There were no injuries and minimal damage caused.
The rockets are reported to have been Russian-made Grad models. If the item found off Eilat turns out to be similar, it will raise the question as to whether the weapons were being aimed at Jordan or Israel.
Aqaba and Eilat, both popular diving holiday destinations, face each other across a narrow stretch of water at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba.
According to The Jordan Times Samir Rifai, Prime Minister of Jordan, has said that the Government is “100 per cent sure that the rocket which hit a warehouse in Aqaba was not fired from the Jordanian territory, but from beyond our borders”.
Investigators, reported the newspaper, are “looking into the incident in order to identify the targets and sources of the rockets”.
The Israeli press has reported that its Government, too, is “looking into the source of the rocket” and has “yet to rule out the possibility that it was fired from the Sinai Peninsula”.
The rocket-firing incident occurred, reported The Jerusalem Post, a week after the Israeli Government warned its citizens to leave Egypt’s Sinai area, due to "concrete evidence of an expected terrorist attempt to kidnap Israelis” there.