Mursi talks tough on Gaza

more assertive stance towards Israel since an Islamist came to power in the Arab world’s most populous nation.
President Mohamed Mursi is mindful of anti-Israeli sentiment among Egyptians emboldened by last year’s Arab Spring uprising but needs to show Western allies his new government is no threat to Middle East peace.
His Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited Gaza yesterday in a demonstration of solidarity after two days of strikes by Israeli warplanes targeting Gaza militants.
Medics say 22 Palestinians have died in the offensive.
Three Israelis were killed by a rocket fired from Gaza on Thursday.
“We see what is happening in Gaza as blatant aggression against humanity,” Mursi said in comments carried by Egypt’s state news agency.
“I warn and repeat my warning to the aggressors that they will never rule over the people of Gaza.”
“I tell them in the name of all the Egyptian people that Egypt today is not the Egypt of yesterday, and Arabs today are not the Arabs of yesterday,” he said.
Mursi’s toppled predecessor Hosni Mubarak was a staunch US ally who upheld a cold but stable peace with Israel.
The new president has vowed to respect a three-decade peace treaty with the Jewish state but ties have been strained by protests that forced the evacuation of Israel’s ambassador to Cairo last year and cross-border attacks by Islamist militants.
More than 1 000 people gathered near Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque after yesterday’s prayers, many waving Egyptian and Palestinian flags.
“Gaza, Gaza, symbol of pride”, they chanted, and “generation after generation, we declare our enmity towards you, Israel.”
“I cannot as an Egyptian, an Arab and a Muslim just sit back and watch the massacres in Gaza,” said protester Abdel Aziz Nagy (25), a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Protesters were marching from other areas of Cairo towards Tahrir Square, the main rallying point for last year’s uprising.
In Alexandria, around 2 000 protesters gathered in front of a mosque, some holding posters demanding Egypt’s border crossing to Gaza be opened to allow aid into the impoverished enclave.
Hundreds also gathered in the Egyptian cities of Ismailia, Suez and al-Arish to denounce Israel’s attacks.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iranians across the country staged demonstrations yesterday to protest Israel’s attacks on the oppressed Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Iranians across the country, including in the capital Tehran, held massive anti-Israel rallies yesterday to condemn the new Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip. Protesters unanimously condemned Zionists’ crimes in the Palestinian occupied lands.
The people carrying placards chanted, “Down with the US” and “Down with the Israel” and other anti-Zionist slogans.
They voiced the Iranian nation’s readiness to defend the ideals of Palestine and remove the cancerous tumour from the face of the world.
People also protested at the silence of the international community and the so-called advocates of the human rights against the crimes committed in the occupied lands.
Over 23 people have been killed and more than 250 others injured in the new wave of Israeli attacks.
Assaults on Gaza started on Wednesday and the Israeli military launched a series of new air and sea attacks against the Palestinians in the coastal territory.  — Reuters/Fars News Agency.