Israel scrambled its diplomatic staff out of Egypt early Saturday after protesters tore down a wall and broke into the Israeli Embassy
As thousands more protesters torched police vehicles and clashed with security forces, an Egyptian commando squad rescued six embassy guards trapped inside the building
Israeli officials who tracked events during the night described tense hours in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone with President Obama and the chief of Egyptian intelligence while monitoring events over a direct link to the besieged guards
Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, also called his U.S. counterparts during the night to ask them
to press the Egyptians to do more to protect the embassy
“Our assessment was that they had 20 minutes to hold out, and in those 20 minutes the Egyptian commandos would arrive,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a television interview Saturday. “Those were perhaps the longest minutes
In response to the crisis, Egypt’s ruling military council announced a security crackdown Saturday, saying it would make full use of the country’s emergency law to ensure safety. It was a move that exposed the fragility of the new government’s control of the streets
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