CAIRO: Egypt declared a state of alert on Saturday after protesters stormed the building housing Israel’s embassy and clashed with police, and Tel Aviv said that six staff members were plucked to safety by Egyptian commandos.
The violence prompted Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon to leave Cairo, but a senior Israeli official said that the deputy chief of mission would remain for the time being “to keep contact with the Egyptian government.”
The attack on the embassy was the worst since Israel set up its mission in Egypt after it became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979.
The violence is also the worst episode in tense relations between Egypt and Israel since the killing of five Egyptian policemen last month on their common border as Israel hunted militants after a deadly attack.
Hundreds of Egyptian soldiers backed by armored cars were rushed to the embassy district after US President President Barack Obama called on Egypt to protect the embassy.
One person died of a heart attack and 448 people were injured, state television reported.
Protesters demolished the security wall outside the mission with sledgehammers and later torched police trucks and attacked regional police headquarters.
They also dumped thousands of Israeli embassy documents from the building after they took down its flag and threw it to the crowd.
Interior Minister Mansur al-Eissawy declared a state of high alert and the government announced that it was convening an emergency meeting on the crisis.
Troops and police were deployed to areas around the embassy, which overlooks a bridge spanning the Nile and is near Cairo University in the Giza district.
About 30 anti-riot police trucks and armored vehicles were parked in the area of the embassy where streets were strewn with rocks and broken glass from the overnight violence, an Agence France-Presse reporter said.
Some roads leading to the embassy and Giza police station were blocked.
On Saturday morning, Israel’s envoy flew out to Israel, sources at the Cairo International Airport told Agence France-Presse.
In Jerusalem, an Israeli official confirmed that Levanon, other staff members and dependents had left Egypt but added that the deputy chief of mission was still in Cairo.
“We left the deputy ambassador to keep up contact with the Egyptian government,” the official told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.
“When the violence got out of hand, some 80 (Israelis) were taken out” of Egypt, he said.
“All our people are safe and sound,” the official added.
