AFP/Cairo
Egyptian demonstrators were demolishing yesterday a wall recently built outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo to protect the building.
Protesters dismantle a concrete wall built in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo yesterday
Around 1,000 people had gathered outside the building housing the mission and attacked the wall with hammers and a large metal bar, as military police nearby did nothing to stop them.
They chanted: “Lift your head, you are Egyptian.”
The wall, about 2m high, consists of prefabricated cement slabs that were recently installed around the building that houses the embassy overlooking a bridge in Cairo.
As protesters chipped away at the cement with hammers, others threw ropes over the metal bars laid bare and pulled down sections of the walls to cheering and dancing crowds.
Military police in riot gear stood by and did not intervene as protesters demolished up to half of the dozens of metres long wall.
Drivers creeping through the crowd on the bridge adjacent to the embassy building honked their horns in support as some protesters chanted: “To Jerusalem we will march, one million martyrs!”
Last month, outraged Egyptians staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the border deaths of Egyptian policemen killed as Israel hunted militants.
Egypt has asked Israel for an official apology and demanded a probe into the deaths of the five policemen.
During one of the anti-Israeli protests previously, an Egyptian man scaled the building housing the mission, removed the Jewish state’s Star of David flag and replaced it with Egypt’s colours, as the crowds cheered him on.
The Egyptian flag still remains on the flagpole, but last week the embassy flew an Israeli flag on another flagpole a floor below.
The military and police had previously broken up demonstrations outside the embassy which increased after a popular revolt overthrew president Hosni Mubarak, who was seen a close regional ally of Israel and the US.
Egypt was the first Arab country to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, in 1979, but Israel remains widely unpopular in the world’s most populated Arab state.
But since the policemen’s death, which put pressure on the caretaker cabinet and military to take a firmer stance towards Israel, the military has refrained from breaking up protests, although it warned protesters this week against vandalism.
