(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Israel says its ambassador, who made a narrow escape after Egyptians stormed Tel Aviv's embassy in Cairo, will not return as long as the city remains unsafe for Israelis.
Israeli sources said Tel Aviv's envoy to Egypt, Israel's closest Arab ally under former dictator Hosni Mubarak, would return to Egypt only after security can be guaranteed.
Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon, staffers, and their families were forced to flee on military planes amid protests by angry Egyptians on Friday and Saturday, but the deputy ambassador stayed behind -- in hiding -- to remain in contact with Egyptian officials.
Egyptian protesters stormed the Israeli embassy premises in Cairo after Friday prayers to call for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador. They tore down the flag from the building for the second time in less than a month.
“In the past few months, we have all noticed that nothing has changed in Egypt,” one protester said, expressing concern over the ruling military council's commitment to popular demands for the severance of ties with Israel. “So the people have decided to reassert themselves on the streets, demanding a logical change in the course of their revolution,” he added.
Angry Egyptians also destroyed parts of the protective cement wall around the embassy and broke into the building, despite the presence of heavily armed Egyptian security forces.
“Today it was made… clear to everybody, to the people in Israel, to the people in the Military Council of Egypt, we are not having this fence; this is not Gaza, here is Egypt,” a female protester said in reference to Israel's restrictions on the movements of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian protesters also threw hundreds of documents out of the embassy's windows and torched a police car.
According to medical sources, three people were killed and more than 1,000 people were injured in what has been described as the worst anti-Israeli outburst in Egypt in many years.
On Saturday, more demonstrations were held, sparked by the army's deadly attack on protesters.
“The army started firing live bullets at me after I got out of a bus. It was during anti-Israeli protests,” said one man hospitalized for gunshot wounds he sustained in the standoff between protesters and security forces near the Israeli embassy in Cairo. “They took my money and cell phone and left me with nothing,” he added.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but the situation has drastically changed since Egypt's February revolution, with the Egyptian people calling for the treaty to be scrapped.
Many observers compare the storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo with the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran following Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The documents captured at the US embassy building revealed that the United States was involved in plots to overthrow the nascent Islamic establishment.
Three decades later, the Egyptians are making an effort to prevent their revolution from being hijacked by the US and its close allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, analysts say.
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Israeli sources said Tel Aviv's envoy to Egypt, Israel's closest Arab ally under former dictator Hosni Mubarak, would return to Egypt only after security can be guaranteed.
Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon, staffers, and their families were forced to flee on military planes amid protests by angry Egyptians on Friday and Saturday, but the deputy ambassador stayed behind -- in hiding -- to remain in contact with Egyptian officials.
Egyptian protesters stormed the Israeli embassy premises in Cairo after Friday prayers to call for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador. They tore down the flag from the building for the second time in less than a month.
“In the past few months, we have all noticed that nothing has changed in Egypt,” one protester said, expressing concern over the ruling military council's commitment to popular demands for the severance of ties with Israel. “So the people have decided to reassert themselves on the streets, demanding a logical change in the course of their revolution,” he added.
Angry Egyptians also destroyed parts of the protective cement wall around the embassy and broke into the building, despite the presence of heavily armed Egyptian security forces.
“Today it was made… clear to everybody, to the people in Israel, to the people in the Military Council of Egypt, we are not having this fence; this is not Gaza, here is Egypt,” a female protester said in reference to Israel's restrictions on the movements of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian protesters also threw hundreds of documents out of the embassy's windows and torched a police car.
According to medical sources, three people were killed and more than 1,000 people were injured in what has been described as the worst anti-Israeli outburst in Egypt in many years.
On Saturday, more demonstrations were held, sparked by the army's deadly attack on protesters.
“The army started firing live bullets at me after I got out of a bus. It was during anti-Israeli protests,” said one man hospitalized for gunshot wounds he sustained in the standoff between protesters and security forces near the Israeli embassy in Cairo. “They took my money and cell phone and left me with nothing,” he added.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but the situation has drastically changed since Egypt's February revolution, with the Egyptian people calling for the treaty to be scrapped.
Many observers compare the storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo with the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran following Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The documents captured at the US embassy building revealed that the United States was involved in plots to overthrow the nascent Islamic establishment.
Three decades later, the Egyptians are making an effort to prevent their revolution from being hijacked by the US and its close allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, analysts say.
/129