Israel envoy 'leaves Jordan' amid embassy protest fears
Israel has cleared out most staff from its embassy in the Jordanian capital Amman ahead of an anti-Israel protest, reports said today.
The move comes amid fears the mission could be attacked like the Israeli embassy in Cairo last week, Israeli newspapers and radio stations reported.
A convoy transporting the Israeli diplomats left Jordan for Israel overnight, the Haaretz newspaper said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry would not comment on the reports, other than to say that embassy personnel generally leave Jordan on Thursdays ahead of the Muslim weekend.
It said a duty representative remained on call in Amman, as is routine procedure.
Activists in Jordan have called for a "million-man march" against the Israeli mission, part of a rising tide of anti-Israel protests there and in Egypt, the two Arab countries that have made peace with the Jewish state.
The Jordanian protesters - led by leftists, labour unions and Islamists - are expected to start gathering near the embassy later today.
Their demands include the embassy's closure, expulsion of the ambassador from Jordan and the annulment of the 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
Nearly half of Jordan's six million residents are of Palestinian descent.
The Israeli flag flew atop the embassy's white-stoned building on a hill in Amman's upmarket Rabiyeh district. No extra security measures were visible - two roadblocks leading to the embassy were still in place, as were about a dozen armed Jordanian police patrols.
