EILAT, Israel (AFP) - Thousands of panicked Israelis fled back into Israel from across the border in Egypt after bomb blasts in the Sinai peninsula killed some 28 people and left scenes of devastation.
"We're scared. We no longer need to stay here," said one Israeli woman who had hired a taxi to get her back "to Israel as fast as possible".
Her seven travelling companions had mobile telephones glued to their ears as they tried to reassure worried relatives.
An explosion ripped through the Taba Hilton, a vast hotel between the shores of the Red Sea and the mountains of the Sinai peninsula, late Thursday, followed by more blasts at a restaurant farther south down the coast.
Israeli army general Yair Naveh said 28 people had been killed in the attacks, including 23 Israelis. He stressed it was a provisional toll.
"We think there are more dead under the rubble, but work to clear the rubble will take time, no doubt several days," the general said, adding that around 20 people were in hospital in Israel.
Israeli rescue operations chief at the hotel, Shamun Romash, said there was minimal hope of finding survivors because of the force of the blast in which he estimated about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosives had been used.
A 30-year-old Israeli woman said she had seen "a huge ball of fire shooting into the air," coming from the direction of the Hilton hotel.
"A few seconds later, I heard the explosion and minutes later I heard another explosion closer to us," said Ronit, adding she had been sitting on a nearby beach at the time of the blasts, Thursday evening.
"The Egyptians told us it was a gas explosion, so I didn't worry. I started worrying when I woke up the next morning early and saw Israeli police and buses driving past," she added.
She and her friends decided to leave at once but took two hours to cross the border, instead of the usual 30 minutes.
"We were in Tarabin (near Ras Soltan) when we saw the cloud and heard the explosion. All the Israelis got together and decided to leave," said Hadas Mizrahi, aged 18.
Israeli-registered cars, some with windscreens shattered, and packed with holidaymakers queued at the Taba border point, crossing over into the nearby Israeli resort town of Eilat at an average of five cars a minute.
Dozens of exhausted Israelis, many in beachgear and wearing medical blankets, could been seen trudging along the road to Eilat.
They said the Egyptian border post had been almost completely destroyed in the blast near the Hilton hotel, a hundred yards (meters) away.
A foreign ministry official said an estimated 25,000 Israelis had already left by Friday morning out of a total of 35,000 who had been spending the Sukkot Jewish holiday -- or Feast of the Tabernacles -- in the Sinai.
Egypt's Sinai peninsula is a popular holiday destination for Israelis despite warnings of possible attacks.
A foreign ministry travel advisory issued on September 9 said security services had obtained "concrete intelligence about the dangers of attacks" in the Sinai desert.
Resorts dotted along the Sinai's coast, where desert mountains provide a dramatic backdrop for the palm-fringed beaches and blue waters of the Red Sea, have remained popular holiday spots for Israelis since the territory was handed back to Egypt as part of a 1979 peace deal.