CAIRO, October 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Three explosions targeting Israeli tourists in Egypt's Sinai desert region late Thursday, October 7, caused 160 casualties, including 35 dead, according to an Egyptian police source.

Israeli public television, citing a police source, said a car bomb detonated close to the entrance of the Hilton Hotel in the resort of Taba just across the border from Israel, destroying a large part of the building.

Shortly after the hotel blast, another two explosions rocked tourist camps at Shitani and Ras Soltan which lie on the coast road of the desert peninsula to the south of Taba.

An Egyptian police source said the three explosions killed at least 35 people and left another 125 wounded. Earlier reports said at least 23 Israelis were killed in the Hilton blast. Israeli TV later put the number of killed at 40.

The explosions occurred as Israelis were celebrating the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and followed warnings from the country's intelligence services that Israelis should keep out of the Sinai desert, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“From the first information that we have received it could have been a car bomb attack,” a senior Israeli foreign ministry official told AFP.

Hospital sources said the casualties were of different nationalities.
“I am standing in front of the hotel. I heard a big explosion about 30 minutes ago that smashed all the windows. The power went off,” a witness who gave his name as Eitan told Israeli radio.

Egyptian public television had said earlier that the Hilton blast was caused by a gas leak.
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.

Israeli Rescue

Ambulances were seen shuttling across the border checkpoint between Taba and the Israeli resort of Eilat, where hospital staff wheeled bloodied victims on stretchers.

Israeli rescue workers who entered Egypt told The Associated Press they had evacuated 39 wounded people from the explosion, five of them in serious condition.

Egyptians reportedly did not at first allow Israeli rescuers to enter the country but later relented after Sharon called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to the AP.

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 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 neighbors 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.

The Jerusalem Post reported September 11, after the government travel advisory, that vacationing Israelis were continuing to flock to the Sinai, despite repeated and increasingly dire official warnings of attacks.

“Because nothing has happened since previous warnings were issued, the public seems to be treating advisories from counter-terrorism experts and the foreign ministry as akin to the boy who cried wolf,” the paper said.

It estimated that over the past summer alone, around 300,000 Israelis took holidays in Sinai, thus 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 activists to strike Israeli tourists in the Sinai.

Palestinians Deny Responsibility

Palestinian officials, however, denied any link to the explosions, but said Israeli repeated aggressions against their people could be a motive for revenge.

“Our battle with Israel is limited to occupied Palestinian territories and no Palestinian (resistance) faction is behind the Sinai blasts,” security consultant of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, General Jibriel Al-Rajoub, said on Al-Jazeera.

“Israeli continuous onslaughts and ignoring of all international resolutions lead to frustration and if these blasts were a revengeful act, only Israel has itself to blame.”

Following Israel’s assassination Sunday, September 26, of a senior Hamas member in the Syrian capital Damascus, Hamas political leaders declared their war with Israel was limited to their Palestinian lands, rejecting Israel’s attempts to a war outside the borders.

Several observers, commenting on Sinai blasts on Al-Jazeera, agreed the Palestinian factions could never be behind the blasts, citing very good relations and close consultations with the Egyptian government.

“No Palestinian faction could be implicated here, especially Hamas. They are too smart to risk losing a strong supporter like Egypt. It could be Al-Qaeda or any one else, but not Palestinians,” Abdul Bari Atwan, Editor-in-chief of London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry sources, on the other hand, were quick to put the blame on the Palestinians and a spokesman went even further by blaming Al-Qaeda.

“These terrorist acts are committed by the Palestinians and by Al-Qaeda militants against Israeli citizens,” Lieour Bindour, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman told Al-Jazeera.

He, however, refused to link the blasts to Israel’s ongoing onslaught against Gaza, insisting the Palestinians needed no justification to attack the Israeli citizens.