At Least 40 Israelis Dead In Egypt Terror Attacks
By
Joel Leyden Updated October 8 18:00
Jerusalem----October 7......Islamic terrorists have struck three resort areas
in Egypt murdering at least 40 Israelis. The 10 floor, 400 room Hilton Taba Hotel sits directly on the Egyptian-Israel border about a seven minute car ride south from Eilat. Emergency rescue services from Eilat are being allowed to enter Egypt to evacuate the dead and wounded. Eilat is the only city near the scene of the blast. There are also Israeli army bases located nearby and they are placing both their ambulances and helicopters into the rescue effort.
Israel radio and Israeli TV first reported that the blast was apparently caused by a gas leak, but reporters at a hospital in Eilat reported that one woman wounded in the blast had said it was caused by two suicide bombers. Dozens of Israeli families were staying at the Taba Hilton when the blast hit. Images of fathers carrying their children with blood stained clothes across the Egyptian-Israeli border are now being shown on Israel television. A large number of people were wounded in the blast, the radio stations said, and many were being evacuated to a hospital in Eilat. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing part of the hotel on fire and said that a ceiling may have collapsed. "The hotel is on fire on the eastern side, the entry point, the lobby. People are trying to get out," a reporter for Israel Radio said from the scene in Taba. Israeli rescue and security forces are rushing to the scene from the city of Beer Sheva, which is located about two hours north of Eilat. The deadly blast at the Hilton hotel in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Taba on the border with Israel late Thursday was claimed by the previously unknown "World Islamist Group", in a telephone call to AFP in Jerusalem. "Jamaa Al-Islamiya Al-Alamiya (World Islamist Group) 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. Israeli security forces and the Israel Foreign Ministry had warned Israeli travelers against visiting Egyptian resorts on the Red Sea, saying they might be targeted by terrorists. The terror attacks comes as Israelis were celebrating the last night of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The Taba Hilton is a luxury hotel that Israelis are lured to due to its casino and lower rates that Eilat hotels. Many of the visitors from Israel come over from hotels in Eilat to spend a few hours at the casino. Casino gaming is not allowed in Israel. An unidentified Egyptian police official told Agence France- Presse that several Israelis were murdered. Six people injured in the explosion have been taken across the border to Israel so far, Avi Assouline, spokesman for Israeli police in Eilat, told reporters.
"Carpets and insulation hung from the gaping facade of the luxury Hilton Hotel," a CNN editor reported. "Sheets and blankets tied to balconies on intact rooms of the hotel showed the frantic efforts by guests to flee." Hundreds of dazed holidaymakers streamed over the border into Israel, among them an unconscious child and a young woman, her arm wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, Reuters reported. Israeli rescue worker Shahar Zayit told Israel Radio: "We saw really a battle zone - everything on the western side from the lobby and to the roof had collapsed." Stairs of a fire-escape were twisted perpendicular to the building and the entrance gate was blown away. Business cards, CDs, Pepsi bottles and cans and personal items were scattered around. A rescuer told The Associated Press a mother and daughter fell from the seventh floor to the first; the mother died of her injuries, but the daughter survived. Meir Frajun said his three children were playing one floor below the lobby when the blast tore through the building. He went down but found only two of them. "Everything was filled with smoke," Frajun told AP after crossing into the nearby Israeli resort of Eilat. "We were hysterically looking for the child. In the end we found him sitting outside with an Arab guest of the hotel." Firefighters said the ceiling of the hotel dining room where tables were set for dinner had collapsed and that bodies could be seen under rubble in the ruins of the luxury hotel. Israeli Ronit Levi, who was staying at the hotel, told Reuters: "There were a lot of people on the ground. We couldn't tell in the chaos if they were dead or not," said. "It was mayhem." Kobi
Zaza, a paramedic, told The Jerusalem Post that his ambulance had to wait
over an hour at the Egyptian border because the eight wounded Israelis in his
ambulance were not carrying identification papers. Despite their agony and pain
the wounded were forced to sign their names and provide their passport numbers
before being allowed to cross the border. Two more explosions may have occurred further down the Sinai coast in the resort areas of Ras al-Sultan and Tarabeen, Israel's Channel 10 television said. The subsequent blasts happened in a camping area where Israelis were staying south of the hotel, unidentified witnesses told the Associated Press. Many of the injured in the hotel explosion were crossing the border on their own to the Israeli resort town of Eilat, Israeli emergency services said. The blast may have been caused by a car bomb, Channel 10 reported, without saying where it got the information. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon got permission from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to allow Israeli ambulances over the border into Egypt, Israel Channel 10 said. Israeli firemen were already in Taba within an hour of the explosion to help rescue people trapped in the building, Israel Radio reported. Israel's Mossad security organization should now be on the heels of the terrorists, with one Israeli official stating that "the all of the terrorists responsible for these bombings will be hunted down and sent to the paradise that they have been promised in the Quran." As many as 10,000 Israelis were thought to be in Sinai for the Sukkot Jewish holiday, officials said. Israeli security sources said they were still unsure who might have been responsible for the explosions. "The
multiple attacks have the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, but there could be Palestinian
involvement as well," said one senior source. The high-rise hotel, located on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba, offers visitors views of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and is popular with Israeli vacationers. Today was the Simhat Torah holiday in Israel, the start of a long weekend. The hotel houses a casino and has such entertainment as belly dancers and diving in nearby reefs, according to its Web site. "Hilton is trying to establish the exact nature of what happened,'' Hilton UK spokesman Alex Pagett said in a telephone interview. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government was sending officials to help citizens get across the border. The explosion
occurred at the entrance to the hotel around 10 p.m. local time, near where guests'
baggage is left off, Israel's Ynet on-line news service said, citing an unidentified
Israeli witness who was on the fourth floor of the building.
The Taba Hilton is the only structure in Taba which is located directly on a border crossing. The Taba Hilton has been the scene of many peace talks between Israel, the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors. The Israeli-Palestinian talks held at Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 made good progress on many issues that had been left unresolved at the Camp David summit six months earlier. Talks were held with Israeli and Palestinian teams in Washington hosted by President Clinton from December 19-23, 2000. The Israeli delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Prime Minister bureau chief Gilad Sher. President Clinton presented a bridging proposal to the parties. Following a meeting in Cairo between Foreign Minister Ben-Ami and Chairman Yassar Arafat, marathon talks between Israeli and Palestinian delegations were held in Taba from January 21-27, 2001, ending in a joint statement. Over 40 of the wounded have been rushed to the Taba crossing where Israel's Magen David Adom ambulances were waiting to evacuate them to the Josephthal Hospital in Eilat. Doctors in southern Israel were asked to come to Eilat, and surgeons from across the country will be flown to the southern city to aid the local medical personal. Egyptian state reported that seven stories of the hotel collapsed from the explosion. Al-Jazeera reported that two other explosions took place in the Nueba area following the blast in Taba, in two beaches visited frequently by Israelis - Ras a-Satan and Tarabin. Israeli media reports said the explosion was caused by either a double suicide bombing or a booby-trapped car. However, Egyptian public television has reported that a gas leak was the cause. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and asked him to allow Israeli paramedics to enter Egypt and evacuate the wounded to Israel. Shortly after, Egyptian officials allowed Israeli ambulances to cross into Egypt. Israeli paramedics reached the Hilton Hotel and are currently assisting Egyptian rescue workers. The Israel Defense Forces dispatched medical crews and ground forces to the Taba terminal area. Two helicopters and a large plane have also been sent to Eilat to assist with transferring the wounded to hospitals across the country. Officials in Israel's domestic security organization, the Shin Bet, said that it is too premature to determine whether the explosion was caused by suicide bombers or a car bomb parked at the entrance to the hotel. The official stressed that for a number of weeks specific warnings were received of plans by terrorists to launch an attack against Israelis in Sinai. The Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning to Sinai shortly before the High Holy Days. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered OC Home Front Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh to travel to Eilat with emergency squads to assist with the evacuations. In addition, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's political bureau, spoke with Egyptian Authorities and received their permission to allow home front command units to enter with Israeli ambulances and assist with searching for casualties who may be trapped in the rubble where the building collapsed. Usually after a terror attack takes place against Israel, Palestinians take to the street to dance and celebrate the slaughter of Jewish civilians, but tonight these Palestinian terrorists from Yassar Arafat's Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups are being confronted by the Israel Defense Forces. The fighting has claimed five Israeli troops and 91 Palestinians since the IDF first poured into the Gaza Strip on September 28. Despite Israel's Gaza operation, codenamed "Day of Penitence," two Qassam rockets launched from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel on Thursday, causing no casualties but damaging a house, Israeli military sources said. The rockets landed in the town of Sderot, barely half a mile (one kilometer) from the Gaza border, the sources said. The makeshift missiles used by Palestinian militants can carry a five-kilogramme (11-pound) explosive charge and have a 10-kilometre (six-mile) range, but are generally inaccurate. Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas warned Wednesday that it would "continue and increase rocket firing" on Israel" and would "not stop launching rockets even if Israel leaves the northern Gaza Strip". "The resistance will not stop and, whether it wants to or not, the enemy will have to leave northern Gaza under rocket fire," masked militants from Hamas's military wing - the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades - told reporters in the town of Beit Lahia. They said they were even developing a longer-range rocket that could strike deeper inside Israel. Israeli officials were unrepentant about their onslaught, despite a growing international outcry which saw 11 countries support a critical draft resolution at the UN Security Council Tuesday night and three abstain, with Washington alone in expressing opposition. Israel's key ally used its veto to block adoption of the text. "The operation will continue as long as necessary, until our forces can guarantee that there will be no more firing onto communities in Gaza and across the border," a senior government official told AFP, asking not be identified. "To end the operation, the condition is clear and unequivocal - the firing on the Gaza Strip communities and Sderot must stop." Israelis are expecting Hamas and Hamas operatives in Syria to take credit for the terror attacks. Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement - the first such agreement between the Jewish state and an Arab neighbor. The breakthrough came in November 1977 when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made a bold and unprecedented visit to Israel and addressed the Israeli people with words of reconciliation and peace. On March 26, 1979, the two countries signed a peace treaty on the White House lawn. The Egyptian President, having gone out on a limb with the peace treaty, was vilified in the Arab world. Sadat was assassinated in 1981. The groundbreaking Israel-Egypt peace paved the way for subsequent Israeli negotiations and treaties with Jordan and the Palestinians. However, relations between Cairo and Jerusalem remain cool and have never advanced beyond what is commonly referred to as the "cold peace." Egyptian media have continued with anti-Semitic attacks in both their print and broadcast media. But in Taba, Egyptians are all smiles with Israelis who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars at the luxury resort.
Four hours after the blast, Israel's military took command of the scene, according to the army spokeswoman, Brig.-Gen. Ruth Yaron, but there were delays in sending Israeli forces and rescue workers across the tense border. On Friday, the charred hulks of Toyota pickup trucks could be seen at the two sites. One was blasted apart, its motor lying on the ground 20 metres away. Amsalem Farrag, whose uncle and cousin own camps in Ras Shitan, said the two blasts were only five seconds apart. He said the camps were full of vacationing Israelis. Tawhid Islamic Brigades published a claim on a Web site that has been used frequently for such claims from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. And Jamaa Al-Islamiya Al-Alamiya, or World Islamist Group, called an international news agency in Jerusalem. Neither group offered detail of how it carried out the attack, as such claims usually do, and there was no way to confirm their authenticity. Egyptian government spokesman Magdy Rady suggested the blasts were related to the Israeli military operation against the Palestinians in the neighbouring Gaza Strip, where 84 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli offensive that began on Sept. 29 to stop militants from firing homemade rockets into Israel. The security adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jibril Rajoub, told Al-Jazeera television that no Palestinian factions were responsible for the explosions. Egypt upgraded a security alert at the airports in Cairo and in the southern tourist cities of Luxor, Hurghada and Aswan. Police were searching cars coming in and out of Luxor and Hurghada and there was a heavy police presence around hotels. Yaron, the Israeli army spokeswoman, said Israeli Brig.-Gen. Efi Idan "took command over the event in Taba" four hours after the blasts. She said, however, "We still have some trouble in sending over all of the forces and their equipment to Taba." An Israeli foreign ministry spokeswoman said that Israel would help evacuate any of the 12,000 to 15,000 Israelis who wish to leave the Sinai. Friday morning, thousands were streaming into Eilat, across the border. Israel set up temporary accomodations in community centres, and Israeli radio reported a countrywide call for surgeons to get to Eilat. More than 100 rescue workers, many wearing hard hats, were allowed to cross, and graders were seen clearing rubble at the site. Egyptians reportedly allowed the teams in after Sharon instructed his diplomats to contact the Egyptians and expedite the crossing. The two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979, but relations have been chilly as a result of Israeli military actions in Palestinian areas. Israel's rescue service said it evacuated 108 casualties to Israel, including one dead and 48 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. 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. Thursday was the last day of the week-long 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. Egypt has long struggled with Islamic militants interested in overthrowing the secular government, but has contained the threat with periodic crackdowns and by allowing Islamists some political activity. The last major militant strike in Egypt was the 1997 massacre of 58 foreign tourists by Islamic extremists in the southern resort town of Luxor. Rady said the explosions are sure to have a negative effect - at least temporarily - on Egypt's tourism industry, one of the country's economic mainstays. "There will be damage definitely to the tourism in the area," he said, "but I hope it will not last long." The terror attacks that have taken place this evening are clearly hits against both Israel and Egypt. The Egyptian government will have to come to terms with those Palestinians who have brought their war with Israel onto Egyptian soil. Prior to the attack today, Egypt has turned a blind eye to terror tunnels which have been constructed by Palestinians between Gaza and Egypt.
Updates on the terror attack on Israelis in Taba and in other resort areas in Egypt will continue throughout the night. With AP and Reuters |
