A series of explosion were heard in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Monday evening, leading security forces to believe that rockets had been fired from the Sinai Peninsula.

Police forces began combing the city shortly after the blasts were heard, at around 7 P.M. The IDF said it has not yet located a projectile. Eilat Police were to resume the search in the morning.

Meanwhile, defense sources in Cairo said Monday evening that the Egyptian army was declaring a high state of alert in the North Sinai Governate following warnings of terror attacks planned against army and border guard targets.

The warnings were received following a series of operation against terror cells in the North Sinai in recent days, according to Egyptian online newspaper Al-Youm al-Saba'a.

Egyptian army sources said that they had close major traffic arteries around the Sinai cities of Rafah and El-Arish and reinforced police and border patrol posts in the region. An Egyptian army spokesperson said that Egyptian forces had also sealed eight smuggling tunnels in the area of Rafah along the Gaza border and confiscated large quantities of drugs.

Also Monday, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip exploded near a school in Ashkelon, part of an escalation in rocket attacks from the Strip in preceding days. Even before the incident, authorities had canceled classes at Ashkelon schools not fortified against rockets. Many parents were asked Sunday to pick up their children in the early afternoon due to fear of rocket attacks.

The Israeli army on Sunday carried out a targeted aerial strike on the northern Gaza Strip, critically wounding Islamic Jihad militant Ahmed Sa’ad as he was riding a motorcycle.

Palestinian health officials reported two other Palestinians wounded in the attack - a 24-year-old man and a 12-year-old youth. The Israeli military said the strike was carried out “to remove an immediate threat to the citizens of Israel.”

The 22-year-old Sa’ad was directly involved in recent rocket attacks on Israel, including the six rockets fired at Ashkelon last Thursday, five of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome battery, the army said.

On Saturday night, a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, and exploded in an open area in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council. No damage or injuries were reported. In response, the Israeli army struck two targets in Gaza overnight. Hamas said two of its training camps were hit in the attacks, but no one was hurt.

Saturday’s rocket fire came despite a severe warning passed on by Israel to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, telling them to immediately stop the deterioration of the situation along the border with Israel. Israel sent the message via Egyptian channels to tell Hamas to stop all rocket fire against Israel immediately.

Over the weekend, Hamas arrested a number of members of small organizations in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to rein them in and prevent rocket fire. Militants from the Islamic Jihad in the northern Gaza Strip were responsible for launching the rockets. But as far as is known, the Hamas leadership did not approve of the firing and it is doubtful whether the Islamic Jihad leadership even approved the launching of the rockets.

After months of relative quiet along the fence that separates southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, some 20 missile launches have been detected in the last month, the Israeli military said.