EGYPT: Hundreds of Egyptians storm the building housing Israel's mission in Cairo

Record ID: 396812

  • Title: EGYPT: Hundreds of Egyptians storm the building housing Israel's mission in Cairo
  • Date: 11th September 2011
  • Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (SEPTEMBER 10, 2011) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SCENES) CROWDS NEAR ISRAELI EMBASSY IN CAIRO WITH TEAR GAS SMOKE SEEN IN BACKGROUND INJURED PROTESTER TREATED IN AMBULANCE PROTESTERS SET FIRE TO TYRE ARMY TRUCKS LINED ON BRIDGE IN FRONT OF ISRAELI EMBASSY IN CAIRO CROWDS NEAR EMBASSY RUNNING CROWDS CHANTING: 'THE PEOPLE WANT THE FALL OF THE FIELD MARSHAL' TEAR GAS
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt, Egypt
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Crime,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA3M4ZVXQVORVGVZW33054V7ITM
  • Story Text: Hundreds of Egyptians stormed the building housing Israel's mission in Cairo and threw embassy documents and its national flag from windows, while airport sources said on Saturday (September 10) that Israel's envoy was set to fly out of the country.
    The Interior Ministry said at least 450 protesters were injured during a day of confrontations with police, who used teargas and fired blanks in the air in an effort to disperse them.
    Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf summoned his cabinet crisis team, state media said, while the Interior Ministry put police on alert and cancelled police holidays.
    U.S. President Barack Obama called on Egypt to "honor its international obligations" and protect the Israeli mission after protesters, who had been demonstrating at Tahrir Square to push for a timetable for reforms and an end to military trials for civilians, smashed through a wall protecting the embassy building.
    Airport sources said the Israeli ambassador Yitzhak Levanon and his family were at Cairo airport early on Saturday, planning to fly out of the country following the assault on the building housing the embassy.
    Israel said it had asked the United States for help in guarding the embassy.
    Thousands had converged on Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the pro-democracy protests that toppled Mubarak, after Friday prayers for what was billed as "Correcting the Path" protests. Some later marched to the opposite bank of the Nile in Giza.
    Demonstrators used hammers, large iron bars and police barricades to tear down the wall, erected this month by Egyptian authorities after daily protests over the killing of five Egyptian border guards in Sinai.
    Protesters scaled the embassy building, removed the Israeli flag for the second time in less than a month and burned it.
    Some also tried to break into the embassy, located in a tower overlooking the Nile, and reached the entrance hall but had not entered inside the mission itself, Israeli and Egyptian officials said.
    The official said the documents thrown from the windows of the tower housing the embassy appeared to be "pamphlets and forms kept at the foyer".
    The demonstrators also tried to storm the local police compound, hurled stones at the police and torched at least four vehicles. They also set a public building adjacent to the police compound on fire.
    Police responded by firing teargas and blanks into the air, witnesses said.
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