At least 30 killed as blasts rock Egypt's Sinai resorts

EILAT, Israel, Oct 8 (AFP) - Suspected car bombs ripped through beach resorts packed with Israeli tourists on the Red Sea coast of Egypt's Sinai desert late Thursday, killing at least 30 people and causing carnage and chaos.
"We know dozens of Israelis have been killed," an Israeli police source said after a massive explosion devastated the vast Hilton hotel in Taba at the main border crossing point between Egypt and Israel.
Egyptian Tourism Minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi put the toll at more than 30 dead and 100 wounded from the three explosions in Taba and two other resorts on the south Sinai coast.
The explosions occurred as Israelis were celebrating the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and followed intelligence warnings that Israelis should keep out of the Sinai because of possible attacks.
Ambulances were shuttling across the border checkpoint between Taba and the Israeli resort of Eilat, where hospital staff wheeled in bloodied victims, including children, on stretchers.
"There was a terrible explosion. In a matter of seconds everything had collapsed, it was awful," said Liron, a 24-year-old Israeli woman.
"I saw bodies thrown into the sea," one firefighter told journalists after helping put out the fire at the Israeli-built hotel. "There was bloody everywhere."
Israeli police said the explosion was caused by a powerful car bomb detonated near the entrance to the four-star Hilton, destroying a wing of the building.
South Sinai governor General Mustafa Afifi said two charred trucks were found at the Shitani and Ras Soltan camps on the coast road south of Taba, indicating that the blasts were also caused by car bombs.
Egypt threw up a security cordon around the blast sites in the Sinai -- renowned for its dramatic desert mountains and palm-fringed beaches -- and boosted airport security in Cairo.
A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the Hilton blast 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.
The explosions came amid a massive Israeli army offensive in the north of the Gaza Strip, a wedge of land near the border with Egypt, that has left 93 Palestinians dead in less than 10 days.
Resorts dotted along the Sinai's desert coast have remained popular holiday spots for Israelis since the territory was handed back to Egypt as part of a 1979 peace deal, the first between Israel and an Arab country.
But Taba, which in ancient times was once a resting point for caravans en route to the Fort of Aqaba, was excluded from Israel's 1982 handover of the Sinai and was only returned in 1989 after years of wrangling following a ruling by the International Court of Justice.
Ties between the two neighbours have soured since the start of the Palestinian intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation four years ago.
But thousands of Israeli tourists are still drawn to the Sinai, especially for its outstanding Red Sea diving and its hotel casinos, banned in the Jewish state.
Itzik Chai, the manager of the Taba crossing, said there were still about 10,000 Israelis in Sinai as of Thursday night. An estimated 30,000 had crossed into Egypt during Sukkot.
An Israeli foreign ministry travel advisory issued on September 9 said security services had obtained "concrete intelligence about the dangers of attacks" in the Sinai desert.
But media reports said vacationing Israelis were continuing to flock to the Sinai despite the warnings. The Jerusalem Post estimated that over the past summer alone, around 300,000 Israelis took holidays in Sinai, replacing Turkey as Israelis' most popular tourist destination.
Avi Dichter, the head of Israel's Shin Beth domestic security agency, told the cabinet on September 19 that prompt action had thwarted a plot by Palestinian militant group Hamas to strike Israeli tourists in the Sinai.
Hamas had threatened to strike Israeli targets abroad after the killing of a top militant in the Syrian capital of Damascus last month that was blamed on Israel.