Sharon and Mubarak Vow to Fight Terror After Resort Blasts

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, today said that he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, would unite to fight terror after 31 people were killed in bombings at Egyptian resorts.

No credible claims of responsibility for the attacks - many of the victims of which were Israelis - have yet emerged. However, the deputy Israeli defence minister, Zeev Boim, said his view was that the attacks, which targeted Red Sea resorts, bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida or its sympathisers.

Mr Sharon said he and Mr Mubarak had agreed in a telephone call to "focus efforts and forces to fight terror", Reuters reported.

Last night's biggest blast happened at the Hilton hotel in Taba, on the Sinai peninsula, just south of the Israeli border. Thousands of Israeli holidaymakers were this morning streaming back over the border from Sinai resorts into Eilat.

There were two explosions at the Hilton. One came when a car laden with explosives - reportedly around 440lbs of them - drove into the lobby, causing a 10-storey section of the building to collapse. A second was caused by a suicide attack near the hotel swimming pool, an Israeli official said.

Later, there were two smaller blasts, caused by bombs in Toyota pickup trucks, at a beach hut and camping sites in Sinai. At least four people died.

France's AFP news agency said at least 23 Israelis and five Egyptians had been killed in all the blasts. Around 150 people were also injured, some seriously.

Earlier, rescuers said people might be trapped under the wreckage of the Hilton, but hopes of finding survivors appeared to be fading. "I don't believe anyone is still alive. We just pulled out one child who was dead," Gefan Naty, an Israeli military rescuer, said.

Mr Naty said a mother and daughter had fallen from the seventh floor to the first. The mother died from her injuries, but the daughter survived. He said he believed rescue workers could have saved the mother had they been allowed to get to the scene earlier. Egyptian authorities, he claimed, delayed their arrival.

Egyptians reportedly allowed rescue teams in after Mr Sharon instructed his diplomats to contact the Egyptians and expedite the crossing. Four hours after the blast, Israel's military took command of the scene.

In a statement, Mr Sharon, who has called an emergency cabinet meeting, said he had thanked Mr Mubarak for Egypt's help in evacuating the dead and wounded.

Today, sheets and blankets could be seen tied to the balconies of intact rooms at the Hilton, showing that guests had made frantic efforts to flee.

There were fears the death toll could rise throughout the day, with reports that dozens of Israelis were still missing.

The hotel attack bore similarities to one on an Israeli-owned hotel north of Mombassa, Kenya, in November 2002, which killed 15 people and was blamed on al-Qaida. In that strike, a vehicle packed with explosives also rammed into the hotel.

An Egyptian government spokesman, Magdy Rady, suggested the blasts were related to the Israeli military operation against the Palestinians in the neighbouring Gaza Strip. In Gaza, 84 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli offensive that began on September 29 in an attempt to stop militants from firing rockets into Israel.

Tensions today remained high, with reports that a sniper - said to be from a Palestinian town - had killed a Palestinian farm worker at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.

However, Jibril Rajoub, the security adviser to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, told al-Jazeera television that no Palestinian factions were responsible for the explosions.

Most people staying at the Hilton were Israelis celebrating the last day of the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot, when thousands of Israelis holiday in the Sinai.

Two Britons were among those injured at the hotel. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the pair were not thought to have been seriously hurt, and added that anyone concerned about relatives and friends could ring the consular information line on 020 7008 0000.

The explosions came one month after the Israeli government urged its citizens not to visit Egypt, citing a "concrete" terror threat to tourists. The warning, issued by Mr Sharon's office on September 9, identified the Sinai peninsula as the target of a potential attack.

Following the blasts, Egypt upgraded a security alert at airports in Cairo and the southern tourist cities of Luxor, Hurghada and Aswan. Police were searching cars coming in and out of Luxor and Hurghada, and there was a heavy police presence around hotels.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokeswoman said Israel would help evacuate any of up to 15,000 Israelis in Sinai who might wish to leave. Israel set up temporary accommodation in community centres, and Israeli radio reported a nationwide call for surgeons to go to Eilat, where the wounded were being transferred.

Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, but relations have been cool as a result of Israeli military actions in Palestinian areas. The last major terror strike in Egypt came in 1997, when 58 foreign tourists were killed by Islamist extremists in the southern town of Luxor.