Egypt Protesters Attack Israel Embassy, Take Down Flag

An Egyptian protester on Friday took down the flag at the Israeli embassy atop a Cairo high-rise after protesters destroyed a protective wall outside the building.

He threw the flag, only recently hung after a protester clambered up the building last month and tore it off, down to the street as thousands of protesters cheered him on.

Last month, protester Ahmed Shehat became a national hero after he climbed up the embassy and replaced its flag with an Egyptian one during a protest denouncing Israel for the deaths of five Egyptian policemen on the border.

The policemen were killed on August 18 as Israeli troops chased militants along the border after a series of ambushes in the Negev desert that killed eight Israelis.

Earlier on Friday, a large group of Egyptians rallying for reforms branched off from a protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square and destroyed a protective wall outside the building housing the Israeli embassy.

Roughly 1,000 protesters branched off to the Israeli embassy several kilometers away and began destroying a concrete wall recently built to protect the mission.

They gathered outside the building housing the mission and attacked the wall with sledge hammers and a large metal bar, as military police nearby did nothing to stop them.

The wall, about two meters high, consists of cement slabs that were recently installed around the building that houses the embassy overlooking a bridge in Cairo.

They brought down almost half of the dozens of meters of wall, chanting: "Lift your head high, you are an Egyptian."

Last month, outraged Egyptians staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the border deaths of the Egyptian policemen.

Egypt has asked Israel for an official apology and demanded a probe into the deaths of the five policemen.

Friday's protest at Tahrir Square was called by mostly secular and leftist activists and boycotted by the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement and other Islamist groups.

Mohsen Rady, a senior Brotherhood member, told state television his movement, which is showing growing strains with the military, believed Egyptians were weary of protests.

"People have grown bored of these demonstrations," he said.

Secular activists are concerned the military's current timetable for parliamentary elections this autumn will play into the hands of the Brotherhood by denying new political movements the time to organize into parties.

The activists are also demanding an end to the military trials of civilians.