Here’s the Israeli Navy boat INS Hanit arriving in Eilat on Saturday, March 8, 2014, after capturing the Klos C, which was carrying dozens of advanced Iranian-supplied weapons made in Syria and intended for Palestinian guerrillas in the Gaza Strip.

Here’s Israeli Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ram Rotberg speaking with the INS Hanit soldiers in Eilat.

He looks proud.

Photo by IDF Spokesperson/Flash90

These kids deserve a special mi shebeirach – use the regular IDF text and add some sea language, maybe with the rustle of waves and seaguls.

And that goes for you, too, Haredi shuls. I know your siddurim don’t even have the prayer for IDF soldiers – get them Xeroxed. Yes, you know who I’m talking about…

A tourist bus standing about 50 meters south of the Taba border crossing between Israel and Egypt, on the Egyptian side, exploded Sunday afternoon. Israeli EMT ambulances from the nearby city of Eilat have rushed to the scene of the explosion, which was initially declared by MDA to be a mass casualty event.

Al Ahram quotes Security sources who say that 4 Korean tourists are dead and at least 14 others injured (down from an originally estimated 27 injured), of different nationalities, who were on the bus when it exploded. There were 30 tourists on the bus.

This number killed has now been updated to 5 confirmed dead, which includes the Egyptian driver,

The bus was on its way to Israel at the time, after visiting St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai.

There are conflicting reports if the tourist bus was hit by a missile or if a bomb was planted in the front of the bus. The governor of Southern Sinai Khaled Fouda said he suspects there was a bomb at the front of the bus, but he stresses he can’t be sure.

The Israeli police released a statement that there were no Israelis on the bus. The IDF said that the Egyptians are handling the rescue operation.

Egypt has been fighting Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda related terrorists in the Sinai.

Al Ahram describes a pattern of bombings and assassination attempts that has been growing since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July. Morsin is currently on trial in Egypt for espionage and assisting Islamic terrorists commit terror attacks against Egypt.

In 2004, a bomb blast at a Hilton Hotel in Taba killed 31 people.

Terrorists  attacked Eilat with two Grad missiles early Monday evening, without causing damage or property damage.

The IDF has confirmed earlier reports of the rocket explosions, and security forces are combing the area to find the location of impact, a process that could take up to several days. Last month, the location of a missile attack on the area was discovered after five days.

It was not clear if the missiles were launched from the Sinai or central Gaza, but in either case, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or their brethren probably were involved.

Monday evenings missiles attacks – the media usually causes them “rockets” so it sounds a lot better for the peace process – shook windows and buildings in the tourist city. One witness saw a flash in the sky before one of the explosions.

The IDF has not yet retaliated for Monday’s attacks. An Israeli military official was quoted last week as saying, “We won’t go back to a situation where three or four times a week the red alarm sounds in southern Israeli towns.”

To the extent that the early warning sirens did not sound in Eilat, the IDF is technically off the hook, but the sentiment in the government, and in Israel, is that it is time to stop playing “rocket roulette:” because one eday, one of those little missiles is not going to fall in an open area but rather God forbid, on a home or kindergarten.

Israel’s problem, and it is a problem only because the government makes it one, is that a strong counter terrorist campaign would blow up the so-called peace talks.

Disney Documentary has bought the Israeli animated story of “Dolphin Boy,” about an Israeli Arab who became mute after being a brutal beating in his Arab village and who underwent rehabilitation through communication with dolphins in Eilat.

Disney intends to promote the production into a full  animated feature, the Times of Israel reported. The father of the boy, whose name is Morad, refused experts’ advice to send him to a mental institution and instead moved from his northern village to Eilat, where doctors worked for four years with dolphins and Morad to bring him back to the level of communicating with people.

Another earthquake, at least the seventh in the past week, hit Israel again on Wednesday, this time in Eilat and causing a bit of nervousness but no injuries or damage.

All of the previous recent earthquakes were in the area of Tiberias and the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), in northern Israel.

The temblor in Eilat was measured at 3.3. on the Richter scale and was felt around 3:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. EDT). Seismologists said the unusual number of earthquakes in a short period of time do not necessarily mean that a major quake is on the horizon, but the coincidence of the temblors has re-awakened awareness about a possible disaster in the event of a major quake.

Home Front Minister MK Gilad Erdan of the Likud party told the Knesset Wednesday that a major earthquake could cause the deaths of 7,000 people and injuries to tens of thousands others.

El Al announced it will halt all daytime flights to Eilat starting Thursday, two weeks after resuming flights based on an understanding with government aviation officials that a solution would be found to a new landing path that El Al considers too dangerous to use.

Terrorist attacks from the neighboring Sinai Peninsula have occasionally targeted Eilat with missiles, and El Al stated Tuesday, “We will not compromise the safety of our passengers. The new flight path to Eilat does not offer the proper safety level for civil aviation.”

El Al said it will continue its nighttime flight and will provide bus service to daytime passengers or refund their money for tickets already bought.

El Al suspended and then resumed flights to El Al two earlier this month after the Civil Aviation Authority allowed the airline to use the regular landing paths while a study was carried out on the new path.

Aviation officials have not changed the route, and El Al is standing by its position, although other airlines are using the new landing path.

El Al Airlines has reinstated flights to Eilat, after having cancelled its three daily daytime flights from Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday because of concerns about the safety of new landing and takeoff designed to reduce the chances of a terrorist attack from Egypt.

The airline’s nighttime flights, whose routing had not been changed, were not cancelled. Other Israeli airlines that fly from Ben Gurion to Eilat have not cancelled their flights.

El Al said the new traffic patterns did not meet international aviation safety standards, but it reinstated the flights on Wednesday, after being given permission to use the old routes until a compromise is brokered.

Last month, Israeli authorities ordered the closure of Eilat’s airport based on a tip from Egyptian security services that a radical Muslim terrorist cell planned to launch mid-range missiles at the airport. In April, two long-range rockets fired from the Sinai Desert by an Islamist terrorist group hit Eilat.

Originally published at Gatestone Institute.

The dramatic escalation in Egypt’s domestic conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military is being accompanied by an upsurge in the activities of jihadi organizations in the Sinai Peninsula.

Since Morsi’s ouster, extremist Salafi and jihadi organizations have launched waves of attacks on Egyptian security forces, and provoked this week’s extensive counter-terrorism operation by the Egyptian army.

These Al-Qaeda-affiliated forces are also seeking to strike Israel — both to satisfy their ideological demand for jihad against Israelis, and to try and force Israel and Egypt into a confrontation, thereby undermining the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

The Israel Defense Forces are therefore on high alert in the event of further attacks by terrorists in Egypt, while also facing the dilemma of how to safeguard its own national security without infringing on Egyptian sovereignty at this most sensitive time.

Two unprecedented incidents on the southern border in just the last few days, however, served as markers for the rapidly changing situation.

First, according to international media reports, an Israeli drone struck an Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization in Sinai, as it was making final preparations to fire rockets at Israel.

While Israeli defense officials have not confirmed or denied the reports, if true, they represent the first preemptive counter-terrorism strike on Egyptian soil.

If Israeli intelligence receives word of an imminent attack taking shape in Sinai, with little time to coordinate a response with Egyptian military forces, such action might be expected.

Islamists across Egypt were quick to seize on the incident to accuse the Egyptian military of being complicit in an Israeli breach of Egyptian sovereignty.

Although this incident was quickly forgotten by Egyptians as both Egypt proper and Sinai descended into turmoil, there is evidence that further attacks by Sinai terrorists against both Egyptian security forces and Israel are being planned.

An additional signal of the deteriorating security situation in Sinai was the rocket fired by a terrorist organization at the Red Sea tourist resort city of Eilat over the weekend.

Anticipating the attack, the IDF stationed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in the city. The prior preparation paid off: the system fired an interceptor that successfully stopped the rocket from hitting the city.

The rocket failed to hurt anyone, but it did trigger an air-raid siren and frighten tourists, sending them scatting for cover. Unlike the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, which are used to Palestinian rocket terrorism, Eilat, a resort town, is not used to living under rocket fire.

Today, a shadow of uncertainty hangs over the future of the city’s tourist industry. For now, Israeli visitors to the city are displaying trademark resilience, and are continuing to pack the city’s hotels and beaches.

Nearby, however, the IDF continues on high alert, watching every suspicious movement in the desert sands near the Egyptian border for signs of the next attack.