Explosion at Hilton Hotel in Taba, near Egypt-Israel border
By Amos Harel, Yoav Stern and Revital Levy-Stein, Haaretz Correspondents,
and Haartetz Service
8 October 2004 (1:02 AM)
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/485939.html

TABA HILTON, Egypt - An explosion ripped through the Hilton Hotel in the
Egyptian resort town of Taba in the Sinai Desert on Thursday evening, close
to the border with Israel.

Israel Police said that at least 30 people had been killed in the blast,
most of them Israeli tourists. A source at Taba Hospital said that 114
people had been wounded.

Israeli security sources said there was growing conviction that the
explosion had been caused by a bomb-laden truck.

Two smaller blasts occurred about two hours later in the area of the nearby
resort towns of Ras al-Sultan, a camping area full of Israeli tourists south
of Taba, and Nueiba, witnesses said.

Seven people were reported killed in the attack at Ras al-Sultan, all
Egyptian workers, Channel 2 television quoted Egyptian police as saying.

A security official in Nueiba said many people were injured, but he didn't
know of any dead.

The explosion at the Hilton, which took place in the lobby of the hotel at
around 10 P.M., caused the ceiling of the lobby to collapse. The hotel was
at full occupancy at the time of the explosion.

A fire then broke out at the hotel, and hotel guests on the upper floors
were evacuated via the emergency exits. Some 10 floors of the western part
of the hotel later caved in as well.

Many Israelis have visited Egypt over the past month, during the period of
Jewish holidays. Last month, the defense establishment cautioned Israelis
against traveling to Sinai, following warnings of a potential terrorist
attack.

Making a bloody exodus from Egypt, dozens of Israelis were taken across the
Israel-Egypt border Thursday night after a blast ripped through the Hilton
Hotel in the Sinai resort town of Taba, killing at least 30 people.

Two more explosions took place a short time later at the nearby resorts of
Nueiba and Ras al-Sultan.

'Gates of Hell'

"The gates of Hell suddenly opened," an Israeli doctor, a guest at the
shattered Taba Hilton, told Channel 1 television.

An unconscious child and a young woman, her arm wrapped in a blood-soaked
bandage, were among those carried on stretchers into waiting ambulances for
the short ride to Yoseftal Hospital in Eilat.

Other wounded were ferried by helicopter to the larger Soroka Medical Center
in Be'er Sheva.

"There was a huge explosion and debris showered down on us," said one woman
at the border crossing.

"I heard a huge explosion. The wall near me collapsed and people began to
run. There were many casualties... The explosion was outside. When we went
out we saw the shops and the internal wall of the hotel had collapsed," the
witness, called Yigal, told Army Radio.

"Some people said it was a gas canister explosion and others said it was a
terrorist attack. There are a lot of people [lying on the ground]. There is
a lot of blood, a lot of screaming," he added.

"The whole front of the hotel has collapsed," he said. "I am standing
outside of the hotel, the whole thing is burning and they have nothing to
put it out with. There is nothing here."

In the wake of the explosions, the anti-terror unit in the Prime Minister's
Office called on all Israelis to leave Sinai immediately, and return to
Israel, Army Radio reported.

The Foreign Ministry said it is ready to return the 12,000 to 15,000
Israelis still in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt initially closed the border with Israel, preventing Israeli rescue
personnel from crossing, but re-opened it a short time later, allowing
Israeli rescue workers, including firefighters from nearby Eilat to cross.

An Israeli witness at the Hilton said that the hotel was on fire, and that
dozens of bodies were lying on the floor.

In the wake of the explosion, Israel amassed a large number of rescue
personnel on the Egyptian border, and Israel Air Force planes were
scrambled.

Israeli medics said they had been informed of "a large number of
casualties."

The blast could be heard about two kilometers from the hotel, said Selma Abu
el-Dahab, who works at another Taba hotel.

Emergency numbers:
Yoseftal Hospital: 12 55 175
Soroka Medical Center: 12 55 177