The surge of violence in the Middle East spilled across Israel’s southern border into Egypt on Thursday night as more than 30 holidaymakers were killed and scores more injured in a devastating series of apparently coordinated car bomb attacks in Red Sea resorts.
Israeli security officials said they believed a car bomb was responsible for a huge blast that ripped through the Hilton hotel in Taba, a resort town in Sinai just yards from the border which is popular with young Israeli holidaymakers.
Witnesses said people were still trapped under the burning wreckage of the 10-storey hotel on Thursday night, at least part of which collapsed in the explosion.
Ambulances and rescue crews streamed across the border from the nearby Israeli town of Eilat.
Extra medical and rescue teams and stocks of blood were flown to the southern town.
”The whole front of the hotel has collapsed,” one witness, Yigal Vakni, told Israel’s Army Radio. ”There are dozens of people on the floor, lots of blood. It is very tense. I am standing outside the hotel, the whole thing is burning and they have nothing to put it out with.”
Later, two other blasts shook the resorts of Nueiba and Ras al-Sultan, south-west of Taba. At least one Egyptian was killed in Ras al-Sultan, with as many as 42 injured in the two attacks. Israeli officials said 30 were killed at Taba and at least 100 injured. Dozens of the wounded filed across the floodlit border on Thursday night to reach an Israeli hospital.
Two Britons were caught in the Hilton blast but the British Foreign Office said it was not thought they were seriously injured.
Taba is the gateway to dozens of resorts on the Red Sea coast on the Sinai peninsula which are very popular with young Israelis, and an estimated 10 000 are currently in the region for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
On Thursday night the Israeli foreign ministry began an operation to evacuate all Israeli tourists from Sinai. Israel had warned last month that citizens should not visit Egypt, citing a ”concrete” terror threat to tourists.
”Recently, a concrete possibility has emerged that terrorists will try to attack tourist centres in Egypt, especially the Sinai,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website. However, Egyptian officials said they had no evidence of terrorism.
The Sinai peninsula was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day war and returned under a 1979 deal that resulted in a formal peace deal between the two neighbours — one of the few deals that Israel has with Arab states.
Sinai shares a border with the Gaza Strip, where more than 80 Palestinians have been killed in the past 10 days in an Israeli offensive designed to stop militants from firing rockets into southern Israel. An adviser to Yasser Arafat denied Palestinians were behind the Egyptian attacks.
The Bedouin inhabitants of the Sinai do not harbour the same antipathy for Israel and Israelis as other Arabs. Some of the best diving in the world can be found along the Sinai Red Sea coast.
Most holidaymakers go for beach holidays but other Israelis go to use casinos which are illegal in Israel. The Taba Hilton, which was built when Israel held the Sinai, incorporated a casino.
In Ras al-Sultan and Nueiba, tourists camp or stay in beach huts. There are larger-scale resorts popular with Europeans in Sharm al Sheik and Dahab.
The bombs threaten serious damage for the region’s tourist trade which relies on Israel for the bulk of its income.
The Egyptian government has often acted as an intermediary between Israel and the Palestinians, who have often felt aggrieved that Egypt appeared more as an emissary of the United States than an advocate of their rights.
Egyptian officials have been playing a role in Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan, offering to train Palestinian security forces and increase security along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israeli officials complained that Israeli rescue teams were denied permission to cross into Egypt for up to an hour after the blast.
Taba, a collection of several hotels, has no major rescue services. Other rescue personnel were not allowed to cross into Egypt without a passport, according to Israel media. – Guardian Unlimited Â