Falling Drone Injures Six in Egypt Resort Near Israel: Army

Six people were lightly injured when two drones struck an Egyptian Red Sea resort on the border with Israel on Friday, the army said.

An army spokesman said on Facebook that an unidentified drone crashed into “a building next to Taba hospital,” in the resort town of the same name, just across the border from the Israeli resort of Eilat.

He clarified later that there had been “two drones coming from the south of the Red Sea,” which lies off Yemen.

“One fell in Taba and the other was targeted outside Egyptian airspace in the Gulf of Aqaba,” with some debris hitting an uninhabited area.

Israel’s military said its air force had countered an “aerial threat” and intercepted “hostile targets.”

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat accused the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen of firing the drones at Israel.

Earlier Friday, Egypt’s Al Qahera News television, which is linked to state intelligence, reported “a rocket” falling on Taba “as part of the current escalation in Gaza.”

Witnesses had told AFP that a rocket hit a hospital annex in the Red Sea resort.

Images circulating online and in Egyptian media showed a damaged building and blown-up vehicles.

Egypt has played a key mediator role in the conflict that erupted when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 220 others hostage, according to official Israeli figures.

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have since killed more than 7,300 people, also mainly civilians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The Israeli army has been using drones to attack Hamas and for surveillance of Gaza, while Hamas and other armed groups, which have fired barrages of rockets towards Israel, have deployed their own drones.