Taba, Egypt ? Blasts from a car bomb and a suicide bomber tore through a resort hotel in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula where Israelis were vacationing at the end of a Jewish holiday Thursday night, officials said. There were at least 19 dead and the toll was likely to rise.

Officials initially reported at least 30 dead, but by this morning a senior Israeli army officer, Yair Naveh, said rescuers had located 19 bodies in the rubble and 38 Israelis were missing. Egypt said at least 12 Egyptians were dead.

The explosion was followed by two smaller blasts at other tourist sites in the Sinai that killed at least two Israelis, apparently caused by bombs in pickup trucks. Egyptian hospital officials said four people were killed in those explosions.

Two bombs exploded in quick succession at the Taba Hilton. A car laden with explosives drove into the lobby of the hotel and detonated, while a suicide bomber blew up near the hotel swimming pool, the Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.

Egyptian officials were investigating the blasts, but could not confirm witness reports that car bombs caused all three.

The Taba blast collapsed a 10-story wing of the luxury Hilton hotel built by Israel when it controlled Taba from 1967 to 1989. Israelis described a chaotic scene as the explosion brought the top floors of the hotel crashing into the lobby.

Meir Frajun said his three children were playing one floor below the lobby when the blast tore through the building. He went down but found only two of them.

“Everything was filled with smoke,” Frajun said after crossing into the nearby Israeli resort of Eilat. “We were hysterically looking for the child. In the end we found him sitting outside with an Arab guest of the hotel.”

Egypt said more than 160 people were wounded, and Naveh put the number at 122.

The explosions came a month after the Israeli government urged citizens not to visit Egypt, citing a “concrete” terror threat to tourists in an area. The warning, issued Sept. 9 by the counterterrorism center in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office, identified the Sinai Peninsula as the target of a potential attack.