In case of a follow-up attack, Eilat’s bomb shelters wee opened after five long-range Grad missiles were aimed from Sinai at the city Wednesday, April 17. The attack was claimed by an al Qaeda-linked Salafist group operating in Sinai and the Gaza Strip – the Shura Council of Jihad fighters of Jerusalem.  It was not intercepted by Iron Dome. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon updated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – who is in London for the Margaret Thatcher funeral – and discussed with him how Israel should respond.

The IDFs’ closure to civilian traffic of a 182-kilometer long security strip, 300 meters deep, along the Israeli-Egyptian border, resulted, debkafile reports, from the failure of US Undersecretary of Defense Michael Vickers to breathe life into the US-Egyptian-Israeli partnership for combating terror during his Cairo trip earlier this month. Refusing to reactivate the Cairo-Jerusalem “hot line” for terrorism, the Egyptians were instead engaged in détente with Iran after Al Qods chief Gen. Qassam Soleimani paid them a secret visit.