CANCELLED: Israeli police announce search is over, there was no infiltration into or near Eilat.

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Original story:

Police are checking if there was an infiltration into Israel near Eilat via boat.

On Thursday evening, an IDF Naval patrol near the Princess hotel saw an attempt by a boat to approach the beach where apparently it should not have been. The navy ship fired warning shots, and launched flares, according to a report in Haaretz.

Security forces are searching, on land, for 4 suspects they believe may have gotten off the boat to shore, according to Ynet.

The area is right near Road 90.

Guests at the southern Eilat hotels are being told to stay inside the hotel.

The Israel Airport Authority has warned that missile fire may disrupt commercial air traffic. No flights have been cancelled thus far, but takeoffs have been diverted to the eastern section of the airport, and landings are being scheduled for the northern strip.

Ben Gurion International Airport is located 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Gaza.

Domestic departures have already been halted at the small Sde Dov airport in Tel Aviv due to the situation in the south. However, the airport has remained open for arrivals for the time being.

The local Eilat airport has been opened to accept diverted and other flights. Flight schedules may change in accordance with the changing situation in the south.

The sun peeked out just long enough Thursday afternoon for Israelis to see the flooding caused by the “sound and light show” they endured over Wednesday night.

Cracks of thunder and long streaks of lightning interspersed with the downpour that sent sheets of rain down through the skies over Israel, drenching the entire country.

Downpours at this time of year are unusual but not unheard of, meteorologist said. By mid-afternoon Thursday, the skies in southern Israel were once again filled with leaden clouds that appeared once more to be pregnant with rain. It was not clear whether in fact more precipitation was on the way; the forecast calls for the possibility for rain, continuing even into as Friday morning.

Rain is considered a blessing in this part of the world no matter when it arrives. There has been a 2.5-centimeter (one inch) rise in the water level of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) as a result of the record-breaking downpour.

But some may have seen it as a mixed blessing: Fifteen members of the Bnei Akiva youth group were trapped in a southern Israeli parking lot due to the flooding. They were rescued by special teams and evacuated from the scene by helicopter. IDF vehicles prepared to enter the area to help evacuate remaining hikers who had been touring in the area.

Bezeq phone lines were still down around the Dead Sea area at midday and service was sporadic at best.

Cell phone companies were scrambling to restore service in the central region. In the Jerusalem area, Cellcom customers reported all kinds of difficulties in placing their calls and in sending text messages Thursday afternoon.

The company had not formulated a response to the complaints by mid-afternoon.

Further south, near Eilat, Route 90 was still closed to traffic by late afternoon due to flash flooding that swamped the road after a night of thunder and lightning that swept Israel from north to south. Route 31, which had been closed earlier in the day, is now open.

A solar energy company headquartered at a Conservative Jewish kibbutz spread its solar energy investments with the launch of six new solar fields in the Negev and Arava, north of Eilat, on Monday.

The $150-million projects cover 128 acres on moshavim and kibbutzim.

Arava, based on the Ketura Kibbutz in the Arava, approximately 43 miles north of Eilat, also has begun construction of a 150-acre solar energy farm near Ketura and which will be able to supply more than a third of Eilat’s electricity’s needs

“Now that the current quotas have been utilized, the time has come to launch the economic tariff era, and to build scores of additional projects, all of them in the Negev and Arava, ventures which long ago demonstrated eligibility for tariff approval, ventures which can be hooked up to the national grid within a year of publication of the second campaign series,” said Arava Power CEO Jon Cohen said.

Arab has been an innovator in clean energy. It recently installed the world’s first automated cleaning system with 84 robots for its solar 28,000 panels.

The kibbutz is environmentally oriented in other areas besides solar energy.

Its operates Algatechnologies, a leading manufacturer and supplier of natural algae astaxanthin. The company announced on Monday the launch of a new products, called AstaPure® 20% astaxanthin oleoresin, which “offers much smaller, friendlier sized capsules without changing or reducing the astaxanthin dosage,” according to Efrat Kat, Director of Marketing and Sales at Algatech.

Algatech’s cultivation process employs a closed system that remains completely exposed to natural sunlight.

AstaPure products are used in multiple forms of dietary supplements, “cosmeceuticals,” foods and beverages.

Eilat residents were awakened by at least two loud explosions this morning (Tuesday), with early media reports that missile fire was being directed at the southern Negev resort city.

Within minutes, however, the IDF clarified that a nearby Iron Dome installation had misfired two of its own interceptor rockets, and that no actual missiles had been fired at Eilat.

It is not yet clear why the system identified a target and triggered the indicator to launch. The launch itself is activated manually by the IDF soldiers.

There is a possibility that a low flying plane in the area caused the system to activate.

A passenger aircraft circling Eilat in a holding pattern at the time over the city’s airport further raised concerns on the ground, according to Walla! News. The plane completed its arrival pattern and discharged its crew and passengers safely.

Past attacks on Eilat have been launched by terrorists based in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. In late January, two rockets were fired at the city; one was shot down by the Iron Dome anti-missile battery. The Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group active in Gaza and Sinai, claimed responsibility for that attack.

A small group of activists are protesting government plans to build a railway line to Eilat.

A group of nearly two dozen youth and young adults marched from Dimona to the Red Sea resort city at the tip of the Negev this weekend to protest the plans.

The protesters and other naturalists are fighting the plan because they fear the railway will destroy the delicate ecosystem that exists in the area. Current plans call for the route to pass through 37 kilometers of nature reserves.

Critics also say that construction on the line may endanger coral reefs in the Red Sea off the southern coast in the Gulf of Aqaba near Eilat.

The plan, approved about nine months ago, is intended to creating a “land bridge” between Europe and Asia. It is aimed at bypassing the Suez Canal in order to ensure that Israeli and international shippers will have an alternative shipping route should the Egyptians ever again decide to close that artery.