When thousands of Arabs marked the Nakba, bloody clashes erupted along the borders separating Israel from Lebanon, Syria and occupied Palestine. In Cairo, another battlefront opened in front of the Israeli embassy in Giza, reports Khaled Dawoud The interior minister had been stern in issuing nearly daily warnings to activists and local political groups against going to the Egyptian-Israeli border in Sinai on Sunday 15 May in order to mark the day Israel came into existence 63 years ago. Pro-Palestinian parties and youth groups in Arab countries bordering Israel -- Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the occupied West Bank and Gaza -- had agreed through social networks on the Internet to organise marches to their joint borders on that day, known in Arabic as Nakba, or catastrophe, to assert their support for the Palestinian people and an independent state of Palestine. Although the Interior Ministry has been criticised by many Egyptians for being lax on maintaining domestic security since the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak and the jailing of his interior minister Habib El-Adli, this time security forces showed they meant business. Dozens of buses which were scheduled to take hundreds of activists on Friday and Saturday from Cairo and other cities to the border with Gaza at the town of Rafah were turned back by police and army patrols even before reaching the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel that crosses the mainland into the Sinai Peninsula. Scores of checkpoints were also put up throughout the road leading to the Egyptian-Israel border in Sinai to arrest activists who managed to infiltrate individually. The Interior Ministry said only residents of Sinai and employees who could prove they worked there were allowed inside. Clearly dissatisfied that they weren't able to join the chain of demonstrators surrounding Israel along its borders with all its Arab neighbours, Egyptian activists decided to move the battlefront to the Israeli embassy in Giza, only a few hundred metres away from Cairo University and a common meeting point for largely peaceful demonstrations over the past few years. Police have always maintained very tight security around the Israeli embassy, located on the top floor of a tall residential building overlooking University Bridge (Kobri Al-Gamaa). The Israeli flag, fluttering on the building's rooftop and clearly seen in Cairo's skies, has always been a source of provocation for many Egyptians. Still, only a day after Mubarak was ousted from office on 11 February, the Higher Council of the Armed Forces (HCAF) issued a statement confirming its commitment to all international agreements signed with other countries, including Israel. Despite signing a peace treaty in 1979, many Egyptians continue to view Israel as an enemy because of its continued occupation of Palestinian land and racist treatment of Palestinians. Just walking by as a pedestrian on the street leading to the building where the embassy has been located for over two decades would be enough to have somebody stopped and interrogated by dozens of security men fanned out in both uniform and plain clothes. This week, security was intensified around the Israeli and US embassies, and scores of tanks were placed near the two diplomatic missions. After hours of protesting peacefully in front of the embassy, chanting pro-Israel slogans and burning the Israeli flag, the crowds gradually grew angrier as news came in that at least 10 Lebanese had died by Israeli bullets when protesters tried to storm the joint border between the two countries. A similar number of Palestinians were killed in shooting incidents by the Israeli army along the borders with Syria's occupied Golan Heights, and the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. By the early evening hours, a few hundred young protesters decided to try to storm the Israeli embassy, and to lower the Israeli flag flying in the sky. They were met by fierce resistance by the army and police soldiers surrounding the building. As protesters hurled rocks and set tires on fire, creating a huge black cloud of smoke, army and police replied by firing hundreds of gas canisters and live ammunition into the air. The canisters created a huge white cloud, next to the black cloud from the burning tires. Health officials said over 350 people were either injured or had succumbed to the tear gas after inhaling it. Only 24 were kept in hospital for treatment. Close to 180 youths were arrested. The battle between army and police soldiers on one hand and protesters on the other lasted until the early hours of Monday. Making things worse for protesters was the announcement by the army that those arrested would be referred to military tribunals. "Why should we be referred to a military trial?" asked Ahmed Hassan, a university student and a member of the Egyptian Campaign in Support of the Palestinian People which coordinated Sunday's protests. "What's the difference then between the new regime and the Mubarak regime? What happened on Sunday night was not different from what we faced in the early days of the revolution against Mubarak," Hassan added. Hassan and other protesters such as Noha Tareq also complained about the excessive use of force by security bodies. "I really wonder where was all this force while Salafis [extremist Islamic groups] were trying to burn down the church in Imbaba," Tareq said in reference to attacks last week against two churches in the impoverished neighbourhood of Imbaba, which killed 15 people and injured many more. Hassan also pointed out that Coptic Christians who have been organising a sit-in in front of the Television Building for the past 10 days in protest against the Imbaba clashes were treated relatively gently by security bodies. And even when a number of people were arrested for clashing with the Coptic protesters on Sunday night, they were referred to regular civil trials, not the much speedier military courts in which there are no appeals. Despite the traditional support for the Palestinian cause in Egypt, a number of columnists and political activists criticised the call for marching to the border with Israel at a time when the country is already suffering from many domestic security problems. Moataz Abdel-Fatah, a columnist in the independent daily Al-Shorouk, said this was "the wrong time to get us involved in more problems with Israel. We have many priorities to take care of here at home." He added, "after we take care of our domestic problems, we can then turn to other external issues." Major General Marwan Mustafa, newly appointed spokesman of the Interior Ministry, denied that police used excessive force against demonstrators. "They broke the law by trying to storm into the embassy and set cars and other public property on fire. This was not a peaceful protest," Mustafa said in statements. Top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, have openly expressed their concern over the future of relations with Egypt after Mubarak's ousting. Mubarak was seen as a key supporter of peace with Israel, and backing its hardline stand against Hamas, the Islamist group in control of Gaza. After a new government took office, one of the first statements made by Foreign Minister Nabil El-Arabi, now Arab League secretary-general, was that Egypt had to review its policy of maintaining a tight closure of its border with Gaza.
