At least three people were hurt on Friday as dozens of armed terrorists, affiliated with the Salafi movement of Islam, stormed the international peacekeeping force base in the Sinai Peninsula, near the Gaza-Israel border. They were protesting the controversial film mocking the prophet Mohammed which has resulted in protests throughout the Arab world.
Channel 10 News cited reports in the Egyptian media which said the Muslims broke into the base and torched it. The report quoted one senior official as having told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm Al-Saba that shots were fired from within the base at firefighters who came to put the flames.
Another source said that 50 armed vehicles arrived at the base and that an exchange of gunfire was taking place.
Channel 2 News reported that IDF helicopters were called in to evacuate the wounded soldiers. Magen David Adom paramedics were preparing on the Israeli side of the border to take the soldiers for treatment at the Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva.
Anti-U.S. protests erupted across the Muslim world on Friday, as violence exploded in Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen leaving two people dead and dozens wounded.
In Cairo, where the first protests against the film broke out on Tuesday, protesters again clashed with police outside the U.S. embassy, although calm returned later after the Muslim Brotherhood withdrew a call for nationwide demonstrations, saying it wanted to avoid loss of life and damage to property.
The protests also reached Israel, as a group of Arab protesters in the northern Israeli city of Akko said that “only a large and strong Muslim state can calm the rage..
Meanwhile, hundreds of worshipers on the Temple Mount started throwing rocks after Friday prayers and began a procession to the Damascus Gate area, in an attempt to reach the U.S. consulate in east Jerusalem. Police prevented the Arabs from reaching their destination. Several officers were injured by rocks that were thrown at them.
The self-proclaimed producer of the film is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Copt living in California. Nakoula told American Arabic-language Radio Sawa that he had no regrets about making the film.
“No, I do not regret it. I am saddened by the killing of the ambassador but I do not regret making it,” he said on Thursday.
