Update: 9 October 11:30 PM Explosion at Egypt's Taba resort A car-bomb explosion at Egypt's Taba Hilton has left 34 confirmed dead so far. Yasmine El-Rashidi reports from Taba The scene at the Taba Hilton is solemn. Thirty-four people confirmed dead, 135 injured, and over 100 Israeli and Egyptian rescue workers scrambling amidst the ruins in the hope of recovering any of the estimated 30 missing persons. In the early hours of this morning, in the now-deserted premises of the Hilton, rescue workers uncovered three bodies, including that of a young child. The discoveries gave hope to on-looking tourists who awaited news of their missing loved ones. �My husband is still there,� one woman wailed. �Please, please, my husband.� The attack took place late on Thursday night, and was closely followed by two more explosions further down the Red Sea coast, in the Sinai �camp� areas of Ras-Shitan and Nuweiba, where six persons were reported dead. All three locations were packed with tourists, both from Israel for the week-long holiday of Sukkot (commemorating the years the Jews spent in the Sinai desert), and as well from Cairo, for the long weekend of 6 October. All three resorts were at full-capacity, with the Hilton hosting 850 guests, the majority of them Israelis. So far, the death-toll includes 24 Israelis, seven Egyptians, and several Russian and Italian tourists. Officials, however, say this figure is provisional. The Taba explosion � the largest of the three - left the front of the Hilton shattered, an entire 10-storey facade of rooms blast to the ground, with only the blue-striped wall-to-wall carpeting dangling down, attached to the room before like laundry pegged to a line. From one of the adjacent rooms on the side of the hotel, bedsheets knotted together to make a rope hang from the balcony railing. At its foot, a few metres down, two mattresses are covered with rubble. �They tried to jump down,� Mohamed Faisal, a hotel employee, tells Al-Ahram Weekly. �I saw a man. I was running to try to help people get out. Maybe others jumped too. I don�t know. I don�t know if they made it. All that rubble fell on top of the mattresses,� he says pointing to the chunks of concrete and broken parts of room furnishings. The mattresses reveal dirt-coated blood stains. �I never would have imagined I would see anything like this in my life time,� Faisal says in a near-whisper, shaking his head in a daze of disbelief. Inside what was the reception area of the hotel, the blackened remains of a mangled vehicle lies amidst the mess. The unidentifiable vehicle is said to have been the one used for the attack - packed with dozens of kilogrammes of explosives. On a lower level, closer to the pool, a large patch of dried-blood on a wall is thought to have been caused by a suicide-bomber. While rescue workers volunteered the information off-the-record, no official statement has been made confirming this second explosion. The hotel, host to the failed 2001 Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, has long been a popular weekend destination for Israeli holidaymakers, who enjoy the convenient proximity of the scenic Red Sea resort coupled with its relatively low Egyptian prices. Taba lies just across the Israeli border, close to the Israeli town of Eilat. Of the 15,000 Israelis vacationers in the South Sinai Peninsula this weekend, over 10,000 of them had returned home by Friday afternoon. Despite claims of responsibility by three unknown Islamist groups, international news agencies and experts insist the work is that of international terror organizations such as Osama bin-Laden�s Al-Qaeda or one of its Jihadi affiliates. Last month, Israeli intelligence warned Israelis to keep out of the Sinai desert, citing information about possible attacks. Egyptian hotel owners were also forewarned of the attacks in the upcoming �holiday weekends�. They told the Weekly that higher security measures had in fact been enforced in the past two weeks. Officials have not released any information as to investigations into the attacks, but there have been allegations of numerous arrests. Officials have denied the reports. �I will not release any information unless I am sure of it,� South Sinai governor Mustafa Afifi told the Weekly. �Everyone [Israeli media] came out with information long before they had any concrete facts. We will not do that. We will not make any statements until we have verified facts and figures.� The governor denied that 20-odd people, reportedly Bedouins, have been rounded up for questioning. The rescue mission, dominated by a team of 80 Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel with their own equipment and supplies, is expected to remain in Taba for at least two more days. �The goal at this point is a life-saving mission,� Israeli Colonel Gideon Bar-On told the Weekly. �What we care about right now is finding as many people as quickly and gently as possible. The time will come for the investigation. There will be time for all the questions, the who and how and why, but that time is not quite yet.� The spokeswoman would not address the sensitive issue of Israeli�s involvement in the investigation. Al-Ahram Weekly will have extensive coverage of the Taba bombings in the upcoming issue of 14-20 October.
