2005 Sharm El Sheikh bombings

On 23 July 2005, three coordinated bombings struck Sharm El Sheikh, a resort city at the southern tip of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, during the early morning hours of Egypt's Revolution Day public holiday. The attacks killed 88 people, the majority of them Egyptians, and injured more than 200, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Egyptian history until it was surpassed by the 2017 Sinai mosque attack. The bombings were carried out by the Islamist group Abdullah Azzam Brigades and appeared aimed at damaging Egypt's tourism industry, a major part of the national economy.

The first bomb detonated at approximately 1:15 am local time at the Old Market bazaar in downtown Sharm El Sheikh, killing 17 people, mostly Egyptians. The bomber reportedly had to abandon the truck bomb in the market after encountering a police roadblock. The second and deadliest bomb was a truck bomb driven into the lobby of the Ghazala Gardens hotel, a 176-room four-star property in the Naama Bay area roughly six kilometers from the town centre; approximately 45 people were killed in this blast. The third device was hidden in a suitcase and exploded outside the Moevenpick Hotel, killing six tourists. The blasts were powerful enough to shake windows miles away, with fire and smoke visible from the explosion sites.

Government officials initially put the death toll at 64 in the days following the attack, but hospitals reported that 88 people had died. Most of the dead and injured were Egyptian nationals. Foreign victims included 11 Britons, two Germans, six Italians, four Turks, one Czech national, one Israeli, and one American, with additional casualties among visitors from France, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, and Spain. Dr. François Boureau, a French medical doctor known for his work in chronic pain treatment, also died in the Sharm El Sheikh area on the day of the attacks, presumably as a result of the bombings.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades was the first group to claim responsibility, stating on a website that "holy warriors targeted the Ghazala Gardens hotel and the Old Market in Sharm El Sheikh" and asserting ties to al-Qaeda. The Egyptian government stated that the bombers were Bedouin militants linked to the same group responsible for the October 2004 Taba bombings in the Sinai. Suspects who were arrested reportedly claimed to have been motivated by the war in Iraq.

In the aftermath, Egyptian authorities carried out numerous arrests, particularly targeting Bedouin residents of the Sinai who were alleged to have assisted the attackers. Egypt subsequently began constructing a separation barrier around Sharm El Sheikh intended to cut the city off from the nearby Bedouin community and reduce the risk of future attacks. The bombings followed a pattern of attacks on foreign tourists in Egypt dating to the early 1990s, including the 1997 Luxor massacre, the 2004 Sinai bombings in Taba, and the April 2005 Cairo attacks. Unlike the Taba bombings, the Sharm El Sheikh attack did not appear to specifically target Israeli visitors, though one Israeli Arab was killed and another injured.