Egypt said it would recall its ambassador from Israel, insisting the killing of five Egyptian security personnel while Israeli forces were pursuing gunmen across the border was a breach of its 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish state.

Egypt's Foreign Ministry later called in the Israeli charge d'affaires, delivered a protest and demanded a joint investigation into the deaths.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel regretted the deaths, which followed attacks in its border area that had killed eight people and sparked the most serious crisis in ties with Egypt since longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak's overthrow in February. Barak also said he had instructed the Israeli army to conduct a joint investigation with Egypt.

However, Egypt's state news agency MENA said the Israeli decision to work with Egypt to investigate the killings :does not fit with the weight of the incident and the state of Egyptians' outrage from the Israeli actions," quoting a cabinet statement released after a second round of a ministerial crisis meeting headed by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf late on August 21.

The cabinet has been holding crisis meetings daily since August 19 after thousands of Egyptians protested in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo overnight, burning Israeli flags, tearing down

Reuters