Egypt recalls envoy in Israel over deaths

CAIRO, (Reuters) – Egypt withdrew its ambassador from  Israel today, saying that the killing of five Egyptian  security personnel as Israeli forces pursued cross-border  raiders was a breach of its 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish  state.
The violence, following attacks inside Israel which killed  eight Israelis, has sparked the gravest crisis in  Israeli-Egyptian ties since Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in  February.
Egypt “lays on Israel the political and legal responsibility  for this incident, which constitutes a breach of the peace  treaty between Egypt and Israel”, the cabinet said in an  official online statement.
The official news agency MENA said the Egyptian death toll  in Thursday’s violence had risen to five after two of seven  wounded security personnel died of their injuries.
A few hundred Egyptians kept up a protest at the Israeli  embassy in Cairo that began on Friday night, when they burned  Israeli flags and tore down metal barriers. Banging on the  barriers, they demanded the expulsion of the Israeli envoy.