10 Israeli tourists killed as bus overturns in Sinai
By Revital Levi-Stein and Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondents
A bus overturned near the Sinai peninsula town of Nuweiba on Tuesday, killing at 10 Israeli tourists, Egyptian police and hospital officials said.
The 10 casualties were part of an Israeli Arab tour group in Sinai. All of those on the bus were injured in the crash.
50 people were injured in the accident. 24 of them have been transferred to Yoseftal Medical Center in Eilat, and were later flown to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva and to Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tzrifin.
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Two people have been classified as moderately to seriously hurt, and two others as lightly to moderately hurt. The remainder of the injured are lightly hurt.
South Sinai Governor, General Mohammed Hani Metwalli, and Dr. Said Eissa, the director of emergency services in south Sinai, said 35 people were injured. Ten of them were in critical condition.
Initially, Egypt transferred some of the casualties to a hospital in Sharm a-Sheikh, 180 kilometers from the scene of the accident. This despite the Israeli offer to transfer the injured Israelis to a much closer hospital in Eilat.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service received reports that injured tourists were trapped under the overturned bus.
The bus was one of four traveling in a convoy, Foreign Ministry official Danny Miran told Channel 10 TV. He said Israel's consul was on his way to the scene from Cairo.
The tour group was apparently returning to Israel after a trip to the southern Sinai resort town of Sharm a-Sheikh. The group's driver and two tour guides are Egyptian nationals.
Channel 10 reported that Israel's ambassador to Egypt had been in contact with Egyptian authorities and hospitals.
Egyptian authorities, however, informed Israel that they do not need help to rescue those injured in the accident.
Yehuda Shushan, director of MDA's southern district, told Haaretz that efforts were made by the IDF, border officials and the Foreign Ministry to allow the entry of Israeli rescue forces into Sinai to care for the injured and evacuate them to Israel.
"The message we received in response is that they are caring for the casualties and that their rescue forces have evacuated everyone to Nuweiba hospital," Shushan said.
"We strongly hope they will let us into Egypt and will allow us to evacuate the injured Israelis. The Nuweiba hospital is a sort of clinic," Shushan said.
Large MDA, police, firefighter and military medical and rescue forces have assembled at the Taba border crossing between Israel and Egypt in preparation for a possible evacuation.
One report indicated that some of the casualties are being transported north to the Taba crossing in private vehicles belonging to Israeli tourists.
Thirty MDA amublances and six mobile intensive care units have been dispatched from Israel south to the crossing, and Eilat's Yoseftal Medical Center has been put on alert.
MDA has also brought extra supplies of blood to the hospital.
The accident took place on a winding stretch of road 80 kilometers south of Taba, and 10 kilometers away from Nueiba.
Egypt has a history of serious bus and car crashes on its roads and highways, which are often poorly maintained or without stringent traffic regulations.
Witnesses: Egyptian ambulances took 30 minutes to arrive Passengers expressed dissatisfaction with the Egyptian medical services.
A member of the Gawmish family of Beit Zarzir said, "We are upset by the treatment we received from the Egyptians at the Nuweiba clinic. There's nothing there - it's a small clinic with no water and no bandages. People with serious injuries are lying on the floor and no one is treating them."
Attorney Munir Hayeb of Tuba-Zanjaria was on the second of the four buses. He said the he counted seven fatalities and that there were several people critically injured, at least five of them with head injuries.
He said that three of the fatalities were children, and that three people remained trapped under the bus.
Hayeb said it took the Egyptian rescue services at least 30 minutes to arrive at the scene of the accident.
He added that the Egyptian rescue services asked Egyptian authorities to allow Israeli rescue forces in, but were refused.
The passengers of the second bus were the first to reach the injured, and began evacuating them in civilian vehicles that had stopped to help.
Passengers said that the driver was driving wildly and that the bus was malfunctioning.
Husam Omar, 27, of Tuba-Zanjaria, said that he saw body parts strewn across the scene of the accident
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