Egypt condemns Israel’s air strikes on Gaza as ’aggression against humanity’

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President Mohamed Morsi faces pressure to take tougher stance as Egyptians protest against continuing Israeli military operation

The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has denounced the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip as “a blatant aggression against humanity” and vowed Cairo “would not leave Gaza on its own”.

His remarks on Friday came amid growing public anger in Egypt over Israel’s military operation targeting Gaza, which was condemned in speeches in mosques and demonstrations.

Protesters marched in the country’s two largest cities, Cairo and Alexandria, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans against Israel.

Preaching at the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, the prominent cleric Yousef Qaradawi, who was long barred from Egypt, likened Israel’s attack to Bashar al-Assad’s use of violence in Syria.

“We say to the tyrant Israel, the day of your end is coming soon,” he told a crowd, some of whom were wearing Palestinian scarves or carrying banners.

Other voices were more nuanced, reflecting the deep conflicts that many Egyptians feel in their country’s relationship to Israel, with whom it signed the Camp David peace treaty in 1979.

Under Egypt’s former leader, Hosni Mubarak, the country had become used to acting as a mediator between Palestinian groups – including those in Gaza – and Israel, a role that the new Muslim Brotherhood-led government has continued to pursue.

Following the assault on Gaza, there has been evidence that the Brotherhood, which had largely maintained the same relationship with Israel despite promising to take a harder line, is being forced to be more assertive.

Morsi’s comments, also speaking at a mosque in central Cairo, underlined the new Egyptian position that has emerged amid widening calls from across the political spectrum for it to take a tougher stance.

“Egypt today is not the Egypt of yesterday,” Moris said. “Arabs today are not the Arabs of yesterday.”

The crisis over Gaza is the first major foreign policy challenge for Egypt’s Islamist administration, which is complicated by the Muslim Brotherhood’s close historic ties with Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement.

Since the Egyptian revolution, the Brotherhood has been in a political bind over its treaty with Israel, coming under pressure from more radical parties, such as the Salafist Nour party, and secular leftwing groups to get tougher with Israel.

The Nour party has said it would support the Palestinians of Gaza “financially, and with the necessary manpower”, until all Palestinian rights were obtained.

Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, a former presidential candidate and head of the Strong Egypt party, himself a former senior leader in the Brotherhood, also condemned the Gaza attacks as “a brutal escalation of the Zionists’ insistence on assaulting the Palestinian people”.

It has not only been groups associated with Egypt’s Islamist parties that have condemned the Israeli actions. Mohamed el-Baradei’s Constitution party has also criticised the Israeli campaign as a “blatant breach of the international conventions and humanitarian law”.

Some of the most vocal objections have come from Egypt’s secular left groups, who are closely associated with the country’s revolution and who have been at the forefront of demanding the Muslim Brotherhood pursue a tougher policy on Israel, including tearing up the peace treaty.

On FridayY in Tahrir Square, Cairo, at a demonstration called to protest the attack on Gaza, all of these themes coincided.

Adil Salahadin, a manager from a clothing factory, also criticised the visit of the Egyptian prime minister to Gaza. He said: “I don’t see why he went, unless it was in pursuit of some plan to involve us in this war. I want to say to Israeli peace groups, speak out, don’t be silent. We know you have extremists for leaders.”

Mohamed Ibrahim Gharib, a textile worker, was deeply critical of both the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership and the Israeli attack. “We don’t have the luxury of making war. We are neither wealthy enough nor stable. We can help Gaza with medicines and food but we need to make sure our own country is safe first,” he said.

“We ask the Israelis to respect our views but Israel does not even respect the US. Why should it listen to us? If we want to punish Israel we should say no more oil, no more gas, no peace treaty until your learn to live in peace.”

His remarks echoed a call made the same day by Iraq’s representative to the Arab League who said Arab states should use oil as a weapon to put pressure on the US and Israel over the attacks on Gaza.

“Iraq will invite [Arab] ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel,” Qais al-Azzawy told reporters in Cairo on Friday, before meeting of Arab League foreign ministers .