toomuchtime_
Gold Member
- Dec 29, 2008
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Egyptian riot police fired tear gas and live ammunition overnight to disperse thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and a security official said Monday that at least 20 demonstrators were arrested.
The rally in Cairo followed calls on Facebook for Arabs to march on Israel on Sunday in support of the Palestinians, who were holding annual ceremonies marking the "nakba," or "catastrophe" - the term Palestinians use to describe their defeat and displacement in the war that followed Israel's 1948 founding.
Egypt's Health Ministry said at least 353 people were hurt outside the embassy, mostly from smoke inhalation. A security official said that some protesters sustained bullet wounds and that one protester was in critical condition. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media.
The protesters set fire to an Israeli flag, chanted anti-Israeli slogans and called for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador and the closure of the embassy.
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Egypt's state-run news agency MENA said the protesters managed to push aside barricades placed around the embassy building and attempted to storm the embassy itself to tear down the Israeli flag, which prompted the police action.
Egypt police fire at rally outside Israel Embassy
Notice in the first paragraph that what the Palestinian Arabs and some of their supporters like to call, catastrophe, this very popular Turkish newspaper calls defeat and displacement after the war, without any acrimonious assignations of responsibility. It is a hopeful sign, imo, that despite the popularity of the Islamist (?) government in Turkey, some are still able to think clearly and speak freely.