Israeli ambassador to Cairo Yitzhak Levanon and 80 other embassy staffers arrived in Tel Aviv airport early Saturday morning, reported Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonot. Earlier in the day, protestors surrounded Levanon and six embassy guards during the embassy attack. Egyptian commandos managed to secure the embassy staff and give them an opportunity to escape the embassy and board a military jet to Israel, the newspaper reported. “The Israeli consul is in a safe place in Cairo and is actively maintaining the embassy,” the newspaper reported. The area surrounding the embassy is now calm despite scattered scuffles between protestors and security forces. “Egyptian security forces controlled the situation by dispersing the crowd with tear gas,” the paper reported. Protestors threw rocks at members of the security staff, more than 900 people were injured in the clashes and 17 protestors were arrested, wrote Yedioth. No Israeli embassy staffers were hurt during the siege last night, the paper reported. The Egyptian government declared a state of emergency after the siege and Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf convened a meeting with the crisis team to evaluate the incident.
