Israeli interceptor missile failed to hit incoming Iraqi drone targeting Eilat, landed in Jordan.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
An Iron Dome interceptor fell near Aqaba in Jordan Sunday night after failing to hit its target, an incoming UAV from Iraq.
Jordanian news agency Petra reported its military’s confirmation that a “flying object” had hit in the coastal city, which is located just several hundreds of meters from Eilat at Israel’s southern tip.
It reported that there no serious injuries or damage resulted from the subsequent impact.
Sappers then arrived to take care of the dangerous debris and citizens were told not to approach the area.
Videos uploaded to social media show the interceptor descending outside the Ayla inlet, a luxury development in Aqaba, and two explosions could be heard, one right after the other.
The first was seemingly the detonation of the anti-missile’s head that was to have hit the UAV aiming to cause destruction in Eilat, and the second was the result of the interceptor hitting the ground.
For its part, the IDF announced that when the incoming missile was discovered, “several interceptors were launched towards the target. One of them fell in an open space. No reports of casualties were received and the incident is being investigated.”
One or more of the other interceptors had hit the target successfully, destroying the threat before it reached Israel’s borders, the army added.
Some Eilat residents took to Facebook to complain that they had first heard two very strong, loud explosions and only then the warning siren had sounded in the town.
Others said that after the siren went off, they heard another two explosions, seemingly confirming that after the first interceptor went astray, a second had worked as it should.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella network of Iranian-backed Shiite Islamist terrorist groups, claimed responsibility for launching the drone.
These groups have arsenals composed of cruise missiles, kamikaze drones and rockets of Iranian origin. They have been launching their long-range missiles sporadically at Israel since November 2023 in support of their fellow Iranian proxy, Hamas, in its war against Israel.
A few have managed to get through Israel’s air defense.
Notably, last month a drone launched from Iraq killed two Israeli soldiers and injured 24, two of them seriously, in an army base on the Golan Heights in northern Israel.
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