EGYPT/ ISRAEL : RESCUE WORKERS CONTINUE TO SEARCH WRECKAGE OF BOMBED TOURIST RESORTS/ ISRAEL EMERGENCY CABINET MEETING CALLED IN RESPONSE
Record ID:
400656
EGYPT/ ISRAEL : RESCUE WORKERS CONTINUE TO SEARCH WRECKAGE OF BOMBED TOURIST RESORTS/ ISRAEL EMERGENCY CABINET MEETING CALLED IN RESPONSE
- Title: EGYPT/ ISRAEL : RESCUE WORKERS CONTINUE TO SEARCH WRECKAGE OF BOMBED TOURIST RESORTS/ ISRAEL EMERGENCY CABINET MEETING CALLED IN RESPONSE
- Date: 8th October 2004
- Summary: (U4) TABA, EGYPT (OCTOBER 8, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF BODY COVERED IN WHITE SHEET BEING CARRIED ON STRETCHER BY RESCUE WORKERS 0.08 2. SLV RESCUE WORKERS WITH A BODY 0.13 3. WIDE OF A CRANE LIFTING A BAG OF RUBBLE 0.30 4. SLV HILTON TABA HOTEL WORKER RAMI EL HASSEN LOOKING THROUGH A BOOK WITH ANOTHER MAN 0.34 5. SCU (SOUND
- Embargoed: 23rd October 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL/TABA, EGYPT
- City:
- Country: Israel
- Reuters ID: LVAETYU8H6CXNO5D36FY60CXGMRR
- Story Text: As rescue workers continued to search through the
rubble after attacks in Egypt Israeli Prime Minister Sharon
holds an emergency cabinet meeting.
A series of bombings killed at least 31 people in
Egyptian Red Sea resorts packed with Israeli tourists, in
attacks Israeli officials said on Friday (October 8) looked
like the work of al Qaeda.
The death toll looked certain to rise. Israeli
officials said dozens of people were missing and bodies
remained buried in the rubble of the Taba Hilton, on
Egypt's border with Israel, after a truck bomb sheared off
a big chunk of the hotel.
The attack was followed by blasts at two backpacker beaches
further south on the Sinai Peninsula, crowded with
Israelis vacationing there during a week-long Jewish
holiday despite official warnings they might be targeted by
Islamic militants.
The explosions were the first major attacks on tourists
in Egypt since 58 foreigners were killed in Luxor in 1997.
Nineteen of the dead in Thursday night's blasts were
Israelis, an Israeli newspaper website said. A Russian and
an unknown number of Egyptians were also killed.
Some 120 people were wounded as normally placid
vacation spots were plunged into nightmares of smoke, blood
and screams.
In the aftermath, Israel complained of delays in
Egyptian approval for bringing heavy equipment across the
border for the search effort. But a compromise was reached
and Israeli cranes moved in and began lifting massive
pieces of broken concrete.
One tearful hotel worker, Rami el Hassen said: "Police
did not let in us, only to get our colleagues out. We had
to take them out over the top of the wall. I still can't
believe what has happened. It is terrible to see your
colleagues and people covered in blood."
Israeli officials said a truck bomb loaded with
explosives rammed into the hotel lobby where it blew up. A
suicide bomber detonated another blast near the swimming
pool moments later.
An entire wing of the 10-storey, 430-room hotel was
torn off. Some guests fell to their deaths from their
rooms.
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.
Shimon Romoh, Commander of the Israeli National Fire
and Rescue Commission said they were still searching for
bodies and survivors under the rubble.
"Yes we do, we think there are more victims down there
in the rubble. (Qu: How many victims are there?) I don't
have any idea we're just working," he said from the site
where workers and sniffer dogs were combing the debris.
A previously unknown pro-al Qaeda Islamist group called
Islamic Tawhid Brigades claimed the blast on a website. The
claim, along with one from another unknown group calling
itself the World Islamist Group, could not be verified.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called an emergency
cabinet meeting in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Friday.
Israeli Education Minister Limor Livant said that the
whole world was at threat.
"This means that the entire free world is under the
threat of the World Islam (Jihad) and we have to take it
into consideration together with other countries from the
free world. We have to understand we are under threat and
we have to do whatever we can together with other countries
to avoid these cases again and again," Livant said, ahead
of the emergency cabinet meeting.
Israeli tourists were targeted in a November 2002 al
Qaeda bombing of a hotel in Kenya in which 15 people died.
Hamas, the main Palestinian faction behind suicide
attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis inside the
Jewish state and in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, denied
any role in the Egypt bombings.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, after speaking to
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said the two leaders had
agreed to "focus efforts and forces to fight terror".
In early September, Israeli security agencies had
warned travellers against visiting Egypt's Red Sea resorts
during the holiday season, saying they might be targets of
attacks.
As many as 10,000 Israelis were thought to be in Sinai,
a popular budget destination close to home, for the ending
of the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot. Israel's Foreign
Ministry was preparing to evacuate all of them in the next
few hours.
Israeli officials said 24 bodies had been pulled from
the rubble of the Hilton and two were recovered at a
backpacker resort. But Israel's Army Radio reported 31
dead.
The attacks were expected to hit Egypt's lucrative
tourism industry, which had been recovering from the
effects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq last year.
Sinai resorts had remained popular with Israelis
despite animosity in Egypt towards the Jewish state. Israel
captured Sinai in the 1967 war but returned it to Egypt
after a 1979 peace deal, one of the few that Israel has with Arab
count
ries.
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