UPDATE - Rocket hits S. Israel from Egypt’s Sinai, army asserts

UPDATES WITH DAESH CLAIM OF RESPONSIBILITY

JERUSALEM (AA) – The Daesh terrorist group has claimed responsibility for a rocket that was reportedly fired on Monday into southern Israel from Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula.

“A projectile was launched from Sinai and hit the Eshkol Regional Council [in the northwestern Negev Desert],” Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner tweeted on Monday morning.

The rocket, he added, had not resulted in any casualties or material damage.

Later the same day, Daesh -- speaking via a social-media account linked to the group -- claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Egyptian authorities, for their part, have yet to comment on the incident.

The reported attack came only hours after Israel sealed its border with Egypt following two church bombings on Sunday that killed at least 45 people in northern Egypt.

The Egyptian authorities declared a three-month state of emergency following the deadly church attacks, which were swiftly claimed by Daesh.

Sinai has remained the epicenter of a deadly militant insurgency since mid-2013, when Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president, was ousted in a bloody military coup.

In the almost four years since the coup, hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed across the restive peninsula.

The Egyptian security forces, meanwhile, continue to wage a fierce campaign -- involving elements of both the police and army -- against what they describe as Sinai-based "terrorist groups".

Egypt’s army-backed authorities say they are battling the Welayat Sinai ("Province of Sinai") group, which is alleged to have links with the Daesh terrorist group.