An earthquake under the Gulf of Aqaba shook Israel's southern resort city of Eilat and Jordan's port city of Aqaba on Wednesday, November 11, triggering sirens and phone alerts, emptying Ramon Airport and briefly freezing flights before the airport returned to full operations. No one was hurt, the Israel Defense Forces said, and no injuries were reported in Jordan either.

Source: Qazinform News Agency

The Geological Survey of Israel put the quake at magnitude 4.5, with its source in the Taba area of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula at a depth of 8 kilometres, and N12 cited the survey as timing the event at 11:24:55 local time. The Times of Israel, Ynet and Haaretz placed the epicentre roughly 30 kilometres south of Eilat. Jordan's Seismological Observatory measured the same event at magnitude 4.7, offshore about 38 kilometres south of Aqaba at a depth of 10 kilometres, Al Mamlaka TV reported — a different official reading of the same tremor, timestamped 12:24 p.m. in Jordanian reports.

Source: Israel.com (Times of Israel / Geological Survey of Israel reporting)

Sirens at 11:25 — and a warning many mistook for a missile alert

The Home Front Command issued its earthquake alert at 11:25, telling people in the affected areas to go out into open ground. Sirens sounded in Eilat and in Arava towns including Eilot, Be'er Ora, Elifaz, the Timna mines area and the Shahoret industrial zone. For many residents the first instinct was a missile warning: one Eilat resident, Shimon Algarbali, told N12 he was in a park with his granddaughters when the alert sounded and ran for shelter before the announcement made clear it was an earthquake, and schoolchildren in the area were brought outside. Another resident, Niv Kandi, said he felt his bed shake for about two seconds.

Ramon Airport emptied; one flight held in the air

Ramon Airport, the international airport serving Eilat on the Red Sea coast, was evacuated, and the Israel Airports Authority suspended flight operations until inspections and infrastructure checks were completed. Crowds also left a shopping mall in the city, Ynet reported. N12 and News.co.il reported that an Arkia flight was held in the air and told not to land, and flight-tracking sites showed an Arkia flight from Ben Gurion Airport heading toward Ramon while the hold was in place.

Source: JBizNews (Israel Airports Authority announcement)

Reopened by early afternoon; residents told they could go back inside

The checks did not take long. The Israel Airports Authority said Ramon Airport had returned to full operations once its scans and infrastructure inspections were done, in an update reported at 13:07 Israel time. At 12:14 the Home Front Command told residents of Eilat, Eilot, the Shaharut industrial zone, Elifaz, the Timna mines and Be'er Ora that they could go back into homes showing no visible damage, and to move to a safe place at once if another tremor occurred. News.co.il reported the command had declared the event over and a return to full routine, and the IDF spokesperson confirmed the quake measured 4.5, the event had ended and no one was hurt.

Defence Ministry: the Truaa warning system worked

In a later update at 19:07 Israel time, the Defence Ministry said Israel's national earthquake warning system, known as Truaa, was activated by the quake and worked as intended. News.co.il reported further detail from the ministry: Truaa is designed to warn the public within seconds of detection, drawing on a network of about 120 seismic sensors across the country, alert systems in schools were activated at the same time, and the ministry's monitoring and situation-assessment systems functioned properly. The ministry said it had received no indications of damage.

A fault line that four countries share

Taba is an Egyptian resort town on the Sinai side of the border, next to Eilat at the northern tip of the gulf Israelis call the Gulf of Eilat and Jordanians and others call the Gulf of Aqaba. The gulf lies along the Dead Sea Transform fault system, a seismically active zone running north through the Arava valley toward the Dead Sea, where tremors felt in southern Israel are not unusual, Qazinform noted. No Egyptian assessment of the quake or of any effects in Taba or elsewhere in Sinai had been reported by Wednesday evening.

What happens next

With the airport fully open, the alert lifted and no damage confirmed by the Defence Ministry, Wednesday's quake closes as a warning-system test that passed rather than a disaster: the remaining open points are the Geological Survey's final (still preliminary) magnitude and location figures, and any Egyptian statement on the Sinai side of the gulf. Travellers using Ramon — Eilat's gateway for Red Sea tourism — faced a halt measured in hours, not days.