Police opened fire on the assailants, killing one and seriously injuring the other, the Health Ministry said.
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Gunmen have killed two Egyptian police personnel in the city of Giza, officials said quoting the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility of the attack.
Security sources from the Cairo incident identified the targeted tourists as Israeli Arabs and confirmed that no one was injured, claiming the attacks were aimed at security forces despite the claims made by the Islamic State.
The insurgency has been centered at the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula but has frequently spilled over into the mainland since the ouster in 2013 of the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
An elderly Austrian couple and a young Swedish man were hospitalised after the assault Friday at the Bella Vista hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Sammie Olovsson, 27, said from his hospital bed that he and his father had been dining at the Bella Vista hotel in the resort of Hurghada when the attackers burst in.
The account was in line with statements from the Egyptian Interior Ministry, which reportedly recorded the attack as a criminal offence, rather than terror attack, and said the men carried only knives and a “pellet gun”.
The assailants were “armed” with knives when they attacked the hotel, police said. ISIS claimed that attack, saying it was targeting “a tourist bus carrying Jews”.
At least three tourists have been stabbed outside a hotel at an Egyptian beach resort by militants who arrived by boat, security sources say.
In June, police foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack near the famed Karnak temple in Luxor – one of Egypt’s most popular heritage attractions – when 600 tourists were inside.
Late on Friday, some knife-wielding assailants attacked a hotel in Egypt’s Red Sea city of Hurghada. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack.
Until last October’s downing of a Russian passenger plane – which Russia and Britain believe was caused by a bomb – the coastal resorts had remained largely free from terrorism for years.
The authorities in Hurghada acted very quickly and very effectively to deal with the local agitators whose goal was to further harm the tourism sector which is so important to Egypt’s economy.
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“Over the coming days we will announce even greater security measures to safeguard all tourists visiting Egypt”.
