A clearer picture is beginning to emerge of how ugly the situation became in the embassy building. An update on this story. “PM: I am glad we avoided danger in embassy attack,” from the Jerusalem Post, September 10:
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded on Saturday to the previous night’s attack on Israel’s embassy in Cairo, saying that the situation could have been much more severe if the protesters had succeeded in breaking through the last door and reaching the Israeli security guards hiding within.
Given the chance, they will try again, and try to go further.
“I am glad that we succeeded in avoiding danger,” he said.
Netanyahu thanked US President Barack Obama and the Egyptian forces for their help in extracting the security guards from the embassy during what he termed a “blatant violation of international norms.”
“Egypt cannot ignore this hard hit to peace with Israel,” the prime minister warned.
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a statement that “The break into the Israeli embassy in Cairo was a very serious event in Egyptian-Israeli relations.”
“Peace between Israel and Egypt is of strategic interest to both states and we need to preserve it,” she added.
Israel’s ambassador to Egypt and senior staff were evacuated on Saturday following the mass demonstration in which hundreds of Egyptians stormed the building housing Israel’s mission and threw embassy documents and its national flag from windows.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone with guards at the Israeli embassy as they were besieged by the mob, reassuring them they would be rescued, aides said.
After telephoned appeals by Netanyahu to Cairo’s interim military rulers and the Obama administration, Egyptian security forces extracted the guards before dawn. Another Netanyahu aide said the Israelis’ heads were covered to throw off the crowd.