Egyptians Attack Israel Embassy, Ambassador Said to Flee

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 that Israel’s envoy was set to fly out of the country.

The Interior Ministry said a minimum of 450 protesters were injured during every day of confrontations with police, who used teargas and fired blanks in the air in an attempt to disperse them.

Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf summoned his cupboard crisis team, state media said, while the inside Ministry put police on alert and canceled police holidays.

President Barack Obama known as on Egypt to “honor its international obligations” and defend the Israeli mission after protesters, who had been demonstrating at Tahrir sq. 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 too soon Saturday, aiming to fly out of the country following the assault on the building housing the embassy.

Israel said it had asked the u.  s. for help in guarding the embassy.

Asked concerning the report that the ambassador and his family were at the airport, an Israeli official in Jerusalem said only: “The ambassador is currently in Cairo.”

Activists who spearheaded the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak on February eleven have been piling pressure on the ruling military council to fix a date for parliamentary and presidential elections and to induce rid of senior officers who served under Mubarak.

Thousands had converged on Tahrir sq., 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, giant iron bars and police barricades to tear down the wall, erected this month by Egyptian authorities after daily protests over the killing of 5 Egyptian border guards in Sinai.

The five died during an Israeli operation against gunmen who had killed eight Israelis. Egypt threatened to withdraw its ambassador from Tel Aviv. Israel has stopped short of apologizing, saying it is still investigating how the Egyptian troops were killed.

“FRUSTRATION”

Protesters scaled the embassy building, removed the Israeli flag for the second time in less than a month and burned it.

Some conjointly tried to interrupt into the embassy, located during a tower overlooking the Nile, and reached the doorway hall however had not entered inside the mission itself, Israeli and Egyptian officers said.