Six people were lightly injured when an “unidentified drone fell” on an Egyptian town on the border with Israel on Friday, the army said.

The army spokesman said the drone crashed into “a building next to Taba hospital”, in the Red Sea town of the same name, across the border from the Israeli resort of Eilat.

Earlier on Friday, Egypt’s AlQahera News television, which is linked to state intelligence, reported “a rocket” falling on Taba “as part of the current escalation in Gaza Strip.

Witnesses had told AFP that a rocket hit a hospital annex in the Red Sea town, which lies near a border crossing with Israel some 200 kilometres (124 miles) south of Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.

Images circulating online and in Egyptian media showed a damaged building and blown-up vehicles.

Egypt has played a key mediator role in the conflict that erupted when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 220 others hostage, according to official Israeli figures.

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have since killed more than 7,000 people, also mainly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.

The Israeli army has been using drones to attack Hamas and for surveillance of Gaza, while Hamas and other armed groups, which have fired barrages of rockets towards Israel, have deployed their own drones.