Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces Rejects Premier’s Resignation
Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces rejected on Saturday the resignation of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf over protestors’ attack against the Israeli Embassy in Egypt, reported al-Arabiya television.
Three people were killed in clashes overnight between police and protesters outside the embassy in Cairo, and a fourth died of a heart attack, Egyptian hospital sources said on Saturday.
The medics said the bodies of those killed were taken to three hospital morgues in the capital, but they did not provide the exact cause of death.
The health ministry had earlier reported one fatality from a heart attack.
More than 1,000 people, including some 300 policemen, were also injured in the clashes that broke out late Friday and continued overnight, medical and security sources said.
Police, meanwhile, arrested 19 people and referred them to the military prosecution which immediately began quizzing them, a security official said.
The authorities declared a state of emergency on Saturday after the violence, which prompted a mass evacuation from the Israeli embassy including the departure of Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon and other staff.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the mob attack a "serious incident," while U.S. President Barack Obama asked Egypt to protect the embassy housed in a high-rise building overlooking the Nile.
On Friday, thousands of protesters had massed in Tahrir Square to demand reforms and an end to military trials of civilians.
After listening to the weekly Muslim prayer, which told Egyptians it was shameful to "forget their revolution," about 1,000 people left the square and marched to the Israeli embassy several kilometers (miles) away.
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse
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