For anyone walking around Eilat on Tuesday, it would have been hard to guess that a rocket had been fired toward the city from the Sinai Peninsula the night before. Almost immediately after the Iron Dome system intercepted a Grad rocket over Eilat late Monday night, residents and tourists in the resort Red Sea city returned to their routines. On Tuesday, the beach was full, business was humming and hotels reported no cancellations. The soldiers of the Iron Dome battery in the city were, of course, the heroes of the day. On Tuesday morning, a truck sent by the Strauss food company arrived at the battery to give the soldiers free popsicles and ice cream. Iron Dome soldiers on break were greeted with rousing applause at the beach and even received kisses from some tourists. Eilat Mayor Meir Yitzhak Halevi spent the morning talking with security officials and receiving updates. "Residents got back to normal quickly, as did vacationers," he said. Given that some tourists did not know where to run when the siren sounded on Monday night, Halevi said he had ordered that signs be hung in tourist areas with directions to protected spaces. One vacationer, Oshrat Makhlouf, spent Tuesday wading in the Red Sea. She was more concerned about the high temperatures than rocket fire. "We'll finish our vacation as planned, not a moment earlier," she said. Israel's defense establishment, however, didn't exhibit the same complacency on Tuesday as people in Eilat. During a tour of the border with Lebanon on Tuesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said, "It's not by chance that we placed an Iron Dome battery there to defend the city." "Even though there is no concrete warning at the moment, our working assumption is that terrorism from Sinai can harm us," Ya'alon said.
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שיתוף כתבה
Life goes on as usual in Eilat, despite rocket attack
Residents and tourists in Eilat quickly get back to their routines after Monday night's Iron Dome interception of a rocket fired from Sinai • Iron Dome soldiers on break receive applause, even kisses, on the beach • Defense minister: Working assumption is that terrorism from Sinai can harm us.