US intervenes to warn Cairo of the severe consequences of failing to protect Israeli embassy staff

Following the storming of the Israeli embassy by Egyptian protesters, the US has reportedly intervened to warn Cairo of the severe consequences of failing to protect Israeli embassy staff.

In a telephone conversation with head of Egypt's Supreme Military Council Mohamed Hussein Tantawi early on Sunday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that Cairo's failure to rescue Israeli staffers from its embassy would have a tragic outcome with severe consequences, Haaretz reported on Sunday.

"There's no time to waste," Panetta reportedly told Tantawi in the 1 a.m. call, warning of a tragic outcome that "would have very severe consequences."

The phone call from Panetta is said to have come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak failed to reach Tantawi and therefore called the US Secretary of Defense to intervene and convey their forceful message concerning the need for speed in Egypt ending the embassy attack.

Egyptian protesters stormed the Israeli embassy premises in Cairo after the Friday Prayers to call for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador. They tore down the flag from the building for the second time in less than a month.

Angry Egyptians also destroyed parts of the protective cement wall around the embassy and broke into the building.

Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon left Cairo a few hours after demonstrators stormed the embassy, saying he would not return to Cairo as long as the city remains unsafe for Israelis.

Under the US-backed Mubarak regime, Egypt consistently served Israeli interests and objectives by helping to impose the crippling blockade on the impoverished Gaza Strip after the democratically elected Hamas took control of the territory in 2007.