{"id":786,"date":"2011-09-10T07:19:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T07:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/protestors-vandalise-israel-embassy-in-cairo\/"},"modified":"2011-09-10T08:44:36","modified_gmt":"2011-09-10T08:44:36","slug":"protestors-vandalise-israel-embassy-in-cairo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/protestors-vandalise-israel-embassy-in-cairo\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestors Vandalise Israel Embassy in Cairo"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{A building housing Israel’s embassy in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, has been stormed by protesters who tore down one of the outer embassy walls.}}<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The Protesters demolished the perimeter wall and replaced the Israeli flag with Egyptian and Palestinian flags. They got inside and threw paper documents from upper-floor windows.<\/p>\n

Destroyed wall has been a focus for protests, with makeshift battering rams and hammers on Friday after peaceful protests in Tahrir Square earlier in the day against the country’s military rulers.<\/p>\n

In response, Essam Sharaf, the Egyptian prime minister, summoned a cabinet crisis team to discuss the situation, and the interior ministry declared a state of alert.<\/p>\n

Yitzhak Levanon, Israel’s Ambassador to Egypt, and senior embassy staff were evacuated and flown home to Israel, Israel Radio said.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of Egyptian soldiers backed by armoured cars were rushed to the embassy district and clashed with the protesters, who torched police trucks and attacked regional police headquarters nearby.<\/p>\n

Protesters played cat-and-mouse with police throughout the night, amid clouds of tear gas and smoke from burning tyres.<\/p>\n

Security forces gradually asserted control and the situation was calm by Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian health ministry said there had officially been 520 injuries as a result of clashes around the embassy. An earlier report said one person had died of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

The group that swarmed the embassy had left a mass rally at nearby Tahrir Square, where organised protesters called for reforms by the military, which has ruled the country since Hosni Mubarak, the former president, was toppled by a popular revolution in February.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros said thousands of documents were thrown out of the windows and at least two police vehicles were set on fire.<\/p>\n

Israel’s Ambassador, Yitzhak Levanon, his family and other embassy staff rushed to Cairo airport and left on a plane for Israel, Egyptian state television and airport officials said.<\/p>\n

The state television also reported that Levanon met with a general of the ruling military’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces before his departure, and that the ambassador appeared “anxious and even scared”.<\/p>\n

Levanon had only recently returned to Cairo from a holiday in Israel as protests raged outside the embassy since last month.<\/p>\n

US President Barack Obama was first to react, calling on Egypt to protect the embassy and “to honour its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli Embassy.”<\/p>\n

A White House statement said,”the President expressed his great concern about the situation at the embassy, and the security of the Israelis serving there.”<\/p>\n

The statement said that Obama spoke by telephone to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and the two agreed, \u201cto stay in close touch until the situation is resolved”.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, also called Mohamed Kamel Amr, Egypt’s foreign minister, to urge Egypt to meet its Vienna Convention obligations to protect diplomatic property, a senior state department official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{A building housing Israel’s embassy in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, has been stormed by protesters who tore down one of the outer embassy walls.}} The Protesters demolished the perimeter wall and replaced the Israeli flag with Egyptian and Palestinian flags. They got inside and threw paper documents from upper-floor windows. Destroyed wall has been a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"byline":[300],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","byline-agencies"],"bylines":[{"id":300,"name":"Agencies","slug":"agencies","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":300,"name":"Agencies","slug":"agencies","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}