EILAT, Oct 8: Thousands of panicked Israelis fled back into their country on Friday from across the border in Egypt after bomb blasts in the Sinai peninsula killed 30 people, including 23 Israelis, 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, on Thursday night, followed by more blasts at a restaurant farther south down the coast.
The Israeli rescue operations chief at the hotel said there was minimal hope of finding survivors because of the force of the blast. According to him, the Hilton attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in a car carrying 200 kilos of explosives.
A second suicide bomber blew himself up by the hotel's pool, he said. Israel's deputy defence minister blamed the Al Qaeda network for the explosions, while an army official said the authors of the bombings "came from Sinai".
"It is clear to us that (the authors) came from Sinai," Gen Yair Naveh said. The general also said contact had been lost with "around 100 Israelis" vacationing in Egypt's Sinai peninsula. 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.
"A few seconds later, I heard the explosion, and minutes later I heard another explosion closer to us," said Ronit, adding that she had been sitting on a nearby beach at the time of the blasts.
"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. A young tourist, Cynthia Levy, said she and friends had come before to the "Sahara" camp, near Ras Shaitan (Devil's Head), but never been afraid.
Ras Shaitan is located in Nuweiba, about 65 kilometres down the coast from Taba. "We came to get away from our own terrorism problems in Israel, but the terrorism caught up with us here." -Reuters/AFP