On 9 September 2011, several thousand protesters forcibly entered the Israeli embassy in Giza, Greater Cairo, after breaking down a recently constructed wall built to protect the compound.

Six members of the embassy staff, who had been in a "safe room", were evacuated from the site by Egyptian commandos, following the personal intervention of United States President Barack Obama.

The Israeli-Egyptian border became a region of conflict and instability due to increased militant activity in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and anti-Israeli sentiment was expressed in protests by masses of Egyptians in the streets of Giza.

[citation needed] Israel later revealed that the remaining Israeli security staff had been separated from the rioters only by the steel door of a safe room in which they had taken refuge.

[17] Prime Minister Netanyahu later emphasized that he "would like to thank the US President Barack Obama for his help" in securing the lives of the Israeli embassy staff.

[6] The demonstration and ransacking of the embassy building continued into the early morning hours as the protesters burned tires and set several police cars on fire.

The Egyptian police eventually suppressed the riots and dispersed the thousands of rioters by using tear gas and firing warning shots into the air.

[1] Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Mossad director Efraim Halevy praised the actions of American president Obama in helping with the evacuation.

75 of those convicted received suspended one-year sentences, and one Egyptian, Omar Afifi who had fled abroad,[22] who was tried in absentia was given a five-year prison term.