At Least 35 Die in Attack on Israeli Revelers
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
EILAT, Israel – An explosion tore through a resort hotel in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where Israelis were vacationing at the end of a Jewish holiday last night, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 160, officials said.
Two smaller blasts were reported later at other tourist sites in the Sinai, and witnesses gave reports that car bombs caused all three explosions. Israel’s Army Radio quoted Israeli security officials as saying they were convinced the first explosion was a car bomb.
The explosions came a month after the Israeli government urged citizens not to visit Egypt, citing a “concrete” terror threat to tourists in an area. The warning, issued on September 9 by the counterterrorism center in Prime Minister Sharon’s office, identified the Sinai Peninsula as the target of a potential attack.
The initial blast, about 10 p.m., rocked the Hilton hotel in the Taba resort, only yards from the Israeli border.
“The whole front of the hotel has collapsed. There are dozens of people on the floor, lots of blood. It is very tense,” witness Yigal Vakni told Army Radio. “I am standing outside of the hotel, the whole thing is burning and they have nothing to put it out with.”
A spokesman for rescue workers, Yerucham Mendola, said others were trapped in the debris.
The explosion could be heard and felt strongly a mile away, said Selma Abu el-Dahab, who works at another Taba hotel. She said a worker from her hotel returned from the Hilton and told of the blast before collapsing.
Egyptian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, initially said the Taba explosion occurred among gas tanks in the kitchen of the hotel, which is next to the casino, where many tourists were at the time of the blast.
A car rental manager at the Hilton, Mohammed Saleh, said he was in the storeroom and couldn’t see where the explosion originated but that several people at the hotel claimed it was caused by a car bomb outside the reception area. Some witnesses reported seeing the wreckage of a car.
About midnight, two smaller blasts struck the area of Ras Shitan, a camping area near the town of Nuweiba south of Taba, witnesses said.
“I heard one very big explosion coming from Taba direction and then, after a while, I heard two smaller explosions from Nuweiba,” near Ras Shitan, human rights activist Abdel Raziq said by telephone.
Amsalem Farrag, whose uncle and cousin own camps in Ras Shitan, said both told him that Israeli cars exploded outside their camps. The two blasts were only five seconds apart, he said.
He said the camps were full of vacationing Israelis.
The blast at the Hilton hotel was claimed by the previously unknown “World Islamist Group,” or, Jamaa Al-Islamiya Al-Alamiya, in a telephone call to Agence France-Presse in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“Jamaa Al-Islamiya Al-Alamiya claims responsibility for the explosion at the Taba Hotel, carried out in revenge for the Palestinian and Arab martyrs dying in Palestine and Iraq,” the caller said.
Contributors to Islamic Web sites were praising the explosions and linking them to a recent videotape said to have been issued by Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
That tape, aired by Al-Jazeera television on October 1, called for terrorists to organize and attack countries that had given Israel “means of survival.” The tape also urged holy warriors to fight Israelis and Americans before they enter Egypt.
Egyptian government spokesman Magdy Rady linked the blasts to the Israeli military operation against the Palestinian Arabs in the neighboring Gaza Strip, where 84 Palestinian Arabs have been killed in an Israeli offensive that began on September 29 to stop terrorists from firing homemade rockets into Israel.
The security adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jibril Rajoub, told Al Jazeera television that no Palestinian Arab factions were responsible for the explosions.
“We understand the sensitivity of moving the battle with the Israelis outside the Palestinian territories; I am assuring that there is no relationship between any Palestinian factions and the explosions in Egypt.”
Egypt upgraded a security alert at the airports in the southern tourist cities of Luxor, Horgada, and Aswan. Police were searching cars coming in and out of Luxor and Hurghada and there was a heavy police presence around hotels.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that Egyptian policemen were shooting in the air at the Taba crossing as dozens of Israelis were trying to break through to get home. The report said the crossing was closed except for rescue vehicles.
[An American assistant secretary of state, William Burns, called Israel’s Ambassador Daniel Ayalon shortly after the first reports on the terrorist bombings in the Sinai last night, offering condolences and American assistance in the rescue efforts, Mr. Ayalon told The New York Sun. More importantly, Mr. Burns said that America could help in coordinating those efforts with the Egyptian authorities.
Most of the coordination has been done directly between Israelis and Egyptians on the ground. According to a report on Israel Radio, however, the Egyptian cooperation was uneven. In some areas, Egyptian authorities were slow to allow Israelis crews in, while in others they were much more helpful, the report said.]
Mr. Vakni said most of the people at the Hilton were Israeli. A witness told Israel Radio the hotel was filled with Israeli Arabs and Russian tourists from Moscow.
“I was in the casino when it happened,” he said. “There was a massive explosion and the left wall came down. People started to run around like crazy.”
Mr. Rady said at least 30 people were killed and 160 injured in the Taba blast, and another seven Egyptians were injured in the Ras Shitan explosions. In addition, Israeli medics who entered Egypt told the Associated Press they had evacuated 39 wounded people, five of them in serious condition.
An official at Taba Hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said his institution had taken in 25 bodies from the Taba explosion and two more from Ras Shitan. An official at the Nuweiba hospital said two more bodies arrived there.
Egyptians reportedly did not at first allow Israeli rescuers to enter the country but later relented after Mr. Sharon instructed his diplomats to contact the Egyptians and expedite the crossing.
Taba is the main crossing between Israel and Egypt and the gateway for thousands of Israelis who travel to the hotels and resorts on the Red Sea. Yesterday was the last day of the weeklong Jewish festival of Sukkot, when thousands of Israelis vacation in the Sinai.
Egyptians also were in the midst of a long holiday weekend marking the anniversary of the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, so popular resort towns along the Sinai coast were packed.