False alarm in Eilat sends police scrambling over feared 'security incident'

Road leading to Taba Crossing with Egypt closed; hotels in area told to keep their guests inside.

By BEN HARTMAN, JPOST.COM STAFF
Eilat Red Sea (photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)
Eilat Red Sea
(photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)
Before midnight on Thursday Eilat Police said they suspected a "security incident" in Eilat Bay but around an hour later they announced that they found nothing suspicious in the area.
Police said that many of its forces as well as IDF soldiers were in the area, and the road between the Princess Hotel and the Taba crossing with Egypt was closed.
The army was handling the incident. Police forces were evacuating civilians from the beach in the area and telling the hotels on the stretch of closed off road not to allow guests out of the hotels and to increase security at the entrances. 
Earlier in the week, IDF units intercepted a Hamas commando unit that sought to infiltrate Israel from the sea at Zikim Beach, just north of the Gaza Strip.
Soldiers killed five terrorists in the Zikim incident.